I don't know why I wanted to share this with y'all.  Maybe to remind you to treasure the time you have with your dogs.  Warning for those of you who don't want to read ahead, this thread involves the loss of several great GSP's.

I've wanted a GSP for a number of years.  In college I had what we determined to be a shorthair/pointer mix.  Argus showed up at our house one day and started sleeping underneath my roomate's truck.  We tried to find his owner, but were unsucessful.  When we invited Gus inside, he came in and sniffed around for about 2 minutes before plopping down and going to sleep.  For the next two years he was pretty much the best dog that someone could hope for.  I've never seen a dog more crazy about tennis balls.  He started my love of shorthairs.  Eventually, when my roommates and I split up the house, my roommate kept Gus as i was starting grad school and moving into an apartment where there was no way that I would be able to keep him.  Argus lived for another 4 years before finally passing a couple of years ago.

Ever since then I've wanted a dog, and just been biding my time until my situtation allowed for me to get one.  Finally this spring, I realized that time was coming and started looking around for a dog.  I had met a guy through another message board that was a GSP enthusiast.  He always had several in his kennell and his hunting buddies were GSP guys as well.  Between the three of them they had lost several dogs over the previous few years in a variety of strange circumstances.  The only one that I recall was a dog that had managed to hang himself in his box while coming or going to the phesant lease.

This February he was looking for a new dog and found a lady in Kansas that had a great litter and had a few pups left.  He went to go meet her and buy one of her pups and ended up buying both of the ones that she had left.  Based on his recomendation and from talking to the lady I decided that I was going to buy one from her next litter.  In talking with her, she said she had no idea when her female would come in heat as she had a very irregular cycle, but to check back with her in a month or so.  So I called her back in April, and she still wasn't pregnant.  Checked back in May, and the answer was still no.

When I called her back in June, I reminded her who I was and asked her if Lucky was pregnant yet.  She burst into tears.  Apparently, a week before I called a bad storm had rolled over their place in Kansas.  While Lucky was a great hunting dog, she was terrified of storms and she always freaked out, especially from thunder.  Well, this storm was paticularly bad.  And apparently it had just sat on top of their house for the whole night..  The next morning when the breeder went outside to check on her dogs, she found that Lucky had gotten out of her kennel.  Right about then Lucky came dragging herself up onto the porch.  While running around in the night she had been hit by a car.  She rushed her to the vet, but it was too late and she lost Lucky.  Over her tears she told me that in addition to being her best hunting dog and her breeding bitch she also was her best friend.  I apoligized greatly and gave her my sympathies.

But that also left me back at square one as to finding the breeder I was going to get my dog from.

Well, when I emailed Kyle, the guy that had recommended the Kansas breeder to me to tell him the sad news we got talking about dogs.   He reccomended a solid breeder from around Wichita Falls that has a good reputation of great dogs in this neck of the woods.  I had looked at him earlier and while I had heard nothing but great things about his dogs, his dogs were almsost all white.  I really didn't want a white shorthair.  In our discussions about what we wanted out of our dogs and how we liked them to look we found that we had identical tastes in dogs.  He told me that he was planning on breeding his main male with the female he had gotten from the Kansas breeder.  He figured he would breed them sometime this fall and the pups would be ready after the first of the year.  Content on knowing where my Trudy was coming from (I have had her name picked out for years), I went back about with my life and started imagining what life was going to be like with her.

Then one Sunday morning in early August I got the following email from Kyle.  For reference, Luke is his #1 male, about 3 years old.  HIs wife and kids were off visiting his inlaws and he had to go out of town on business for a few days.

I think it almost made it harder because the guy that was supposed to come take care of his dogs had done it a number of times in the past.  He was an older guy that lived near him that formerly bred and raised dogs.  He just got his days mixed up.  The fact that it was an honest mistake and not a malicous act made it harder to lash out.

While commisserating with him, I again found myself sad because again my Trudy was being postponed.  When his kids returned from their grandparents he gave them the sad news about Luke's death.  In talking with them, he put the question to them as to whether or not it was  ok to get a new dog.  His oldest, a girl of about 8 said, "Daddy, we have to get a new dog.  Luke was Daisy's (the dog he had gotten from the Kansas breeder) best friend.  While we all miss Luke, it isn't fair to Daisy to not get her a new friend.

Pretty mature words for an 8 year old.

So Kyle started looking for a new dog.  He ended up finding another graet litter of pups in Oklahoma.  Although the timing wasn't perfect for me, for some reason I started talking to the breeder as well.  And I got my Trudy.  Actually, when Kyle went to go pick up his pup out of the litter (about a week before I got Trudy) he immediately was drawn to a paticular female.  The breeder said, "Sorry, that one is Andy's (me)."

So he picked one of her brothers and the following weekend Trudy moved in with me into my new house (the day after I moved in).

So Trudy moved in with me in late August and I got to experience all of the "joys" of pupphood for the first time.  In early October Kyle and I exchanged a couple of emails about our new pups.  From the way we described them, it was obvious they were brother and sister.  Well, in October, I was going to have to travel for most of 2 weeks.  It was a perfect time for me to send her for basic obedience training.  The place that I sent her mandated that you board your dog with them for two weeks.  The day before I was supposed to pick her up, I was in Austin for a meeting.  As I was in a meeting, I had my cell phone turned off all morning and through lunch.  On my way to the airport to fly home to Dallas, I checked my voicemail and realized that the trainer had called me numerous times on both my cell and at my office.  Apparently, Trudy had gotten real sick and they took her to the vet.  Somewhat comically, the way they knew she was sick was because she wasn't as crazy as she normally is.  Well, their vet said she had developed an upper respiratory infection, and put her on anti-biotics.  Yikes, but at least she had gotten care and would hopefully be getting better.

The next afternoon I went to pick up Trudy from the trainer.  When I went into the back for my "checkout lesson" the trainer said that she was too sick for them to show me what she had learned.  We talked for a while and then they finally brought Trudy to me.  In the two weeks they had had her, I bet she had lost at least 5 or 6 pounds, was rail then, VERY lethargic and shivering.  They told me that the antibiotics would take a couple of days to do their thing.  So I took her home that night.  She refused to eat dinner and it was all I could do to get her to eat her pill wrapped in some lunch meat.  While sitting around that night, she just curled up on the couch next to me and went to sleep.  In the 6 weeks I had had her she had never gone to sleep outside her crate.  Normally you had to sit on her to get her to settle down.  Her breathing was very shallow.  Worried about her (and her not having seen my vet) I called a friend of mine from college that is a vet (and a bird dog guy) and he told me that the antibiotic she was on was a good one, it would just take a couple of days to work.

So worried, but knowing that things would get better we went to bed that night.

The next morning we woke up and she again wouldn't eat her breakfast.  She wasn't even interested in her pill wrapped in lunchmeat.  I had to force the pill down her throat.  I had to go to work (I had been gone for a week and had things that had to be attended to) but returned a couple of hours later at lunch.  When I took her out in the yard to go pee, she just kind of fell over in the grass and wouldn't get up.  I carried her back inside and she still wouldn't eat.  So now she probably hasn't eaten i n24 hours and I decided to take her to see my vet.  I was somewhat worried that I was eing the overprotective parent, but it was worth the peace of mind knowing that she really was going to be ok.  My vet was packed and they said it would be 4 hours before they could see her.  So I left her with them and told them to call me when they knew something.  I went back to my house to work for the afternoon.

Not more than 20 minutes after I dropped her off I got a call from the vet. 

"Well, we've taken a look at her.  If you can come in later this afternoon and look at the xrays...."

I told them to hang on and I would be there in 5 minutes.

It turns out that Trudy had a VERY severe case of pnemonia.  It was a paticularly bad strain of kennel cough that they had seen several times this fall that was going through East Dallas and turning into this nasty pnemonia.  The vet told me that the reason she wasn't coughing was because her lungs were essentially concrete.  By the time we got done looking at the xrays they took me into the back where they already had an IV in her and one of the techs was beating on her lungs to help break up the gunk that was accumulated inside her.  they told me it was going to be a couple of days, but she was going to get better with the help of good care, three different anti-biotics, a humidifier and a lot of love.

When I went home that afternoon I emailed Kyle to let him know the scare that I had, but it looked like now everything was going to be OK.

The next morning at 8am I got a call from my vet's office.

"Mr. Jones?"

"This is him."

"This is Dr. Claiborne at Hillside Vet Clinic." (this was a different vet than I had ever dealt with)

"Um...hi?"

"You brought Trudy here yesterday?"

"Yes?"

At this point in time I know for a fact that she died last night. No sane doctor would start a good phone conversation this way. Her tone and inflection is all wrong and she is asking me too many dumb questions. I'm preparing myself for the worst.

"Well, when I got in this morning they told me that we had a case of bacterial pneumonia in the back. I was really worried what I would find back there."

No, you don't have a case of bacterial pneumonia in the back, you have a dog in the back that has bacterial pneumonia.

"Well, when I got in the back I found Trudy bouncing all over the place and licking my hands. I listened to her lungs and can't really hear any fluid. Dr. Baker will have to make the call when she gets in this afternoon, but I bet she can go home tomorrow."

Argh! Damn you Dr. Claiborne and your good news delivered poorly!

6 weeks later and I"m happy to say that trudy has made a full recovery.

The day after I picked her up, I got an email response from Kyle.

LIke I said, I'm not sure why I took the time to write all of this out tonight.  I guess I just want to make sure you hug your dogs tonight before you go to bed because you never know what tomorrow holds.  Maybe it also is a reminder to myself that while there might be times that she drives me crazy, I can't imagine life without her.

It sure is a touching story and i agree with Ace makes you appreciate Trudy. That's why I believe in living today as much as you can because tomorrow we might not be here.

When Chase came home from the trainer 4 weeks ago he had a bad case of pnuemonia. We got the ok from his doc to let him hunt and sure enough after a long wet day he came up sick again. I know he will now miss out on most of the season until he is fully well, but at least he will be alive and well sitting next to me on the couch!