Serena’s Remarkable Journey

No Schipperke Left Behind: 

The 602-day Odyssey of Serena,

Patron Saint of the Unadoptable Schipperke

In 1927, Don Marquis, a New York newspaper journalist, compiled a collection of his columns into a little book entitled Archy and Mehitabel.  Archy was a cockroach who sneaked into Marquis’s office each night and typed stories in his typewriter about the city’s small life living in Shinbone Alley.   Many of the stories focused on the Alley’s most notorious inhabitant, Mehitabel the Cat.  Of Mehitabel, Archy wrote: 

Her left leg is ragged; there are lumps in her hide

And she limps when she walks on the starboard side

Though life always treats her in the same ugly way

Still she sings as she dances . . . toujours gai . . . toujours gai . . .

On May 16, 2005, I picked up “Lady” from the Tri-County Shelter in Hughesville, Maryland at the request of the Colonial Schipperke Club’s Rescue Committee. 

Life, indeed, had treated her in a very ugly way.

An anonymous “night drop” three days earlier, she was wretchedly smelly and filthy.  Her coat was ragged, patches of it worn away by a chain.  She was skin and bones at eleven pounds.  I gave her a bath and a healthy meal and lots of love.  She drank large amounts of water and was peeing constantly. 

Our hospital took blood samples the next day.  The vet on duty said that her ability to put on weight was critical.  He put her on a prescription diet and gave us medication for conjunctivitis, respiratory infection and stiffness.  For the next two days, she ate everything in sight, but she pooped it out just as fast and continued to drink far too much water. 

The blood tests told the underlying story:  she was a severe diabetic.  Our regular vet, Dr. Anna Parvianian, took her into the hospital.  In addition to the raging diabetes, conjunctivitis and respiratory issues, she had Cushings disease, arthritis, cataracts and rotten teeth. 

Off to a bad start . . .

Forty eight hours later, Serena still had high blood sugar but was doing much better and keeping food down. We brought her home, picking up insulin and syringes on the way. 

But Serena wasn’t able to fully cooperate yet.  She did reasonably well for a couple of days, but then her food intake dropped markedly. We were now between the traditional rock and hard place; she needed food to survive and insulin to offset it, but neither without the other.  So we worked furiously to get enough in her to support the medication, and gave her a partial shot.

At 3 AM, I heard a scream from Serena’s crate in our bedroom.  When I got to her, she was completely limp and frothing at the mouth.  We fed her Karo syrup; she came around but was still very weak.  I held her through periods of convulsions until daybreak and took her back to Dr. Anna. 

And then the miracle . . .

After a morning of  mainlining dextrose, she stabilized.  But when I picked her up that afternoon, she was already refusing food again.  We boiled hamburger and chicken, worked for over an hour and got a quarter cup in her, and then gave her a small dose of insulin.  Throughout the evening, she was limp and couldn’t stand.  I forced some sugar water in her, put her on a large crate pad on the sunroom floor and wrapped myself up in a blanket next to her.   I fell asleep at midnight -- she hadn’t stirred in hours, and I didn’t expect her to make it through the night. 

Three hours later, I was awakened by a wet nose in my back.

Serena was standing up, asking to go out!

After she did, she ate like mad – even her regular food -- and drank water in normal amounts.  She grew stronger over the next two days.  She ate well, went out multiple times, and even took a slow walk through the neighborhood with me.  I put her in a crate while we went out to dinner, and when we returned and opened the crate door, she bolted from it and pranced excitedly, then trotted around the back yard! 

When she began to prance, we began to laugh. And cry. 

And fall ever so much more deeply in love with her.

 Our plea for help… 

Serena was not a candidate for a quick cure.  After these scary first weeks, we feared that her needs were greater than our abilities.  So we called upon Don and Mary Nielsen’s forty-plus years of Schip breeding, rescue experience and medical knowledge for help.  They agreed to take Serena into Midwatch and work with her. 

Over the next month or so, her diabetes regulation remained difficult and her glucose level remained high, due in part to her other medical problems.    At first, her weight loss and anemia remained serious concerns.  But then she started to eat well – as many as four meals a day -- and very slowly began to pack a little fat around her skin-and-bones. 

Early in July, she couldn’t stand up one morning, and, after being picked up, she limped quite badly.  A trip to the vet revealed a couple of badly degenerated discs which required a daily anti-inflammatory to keep her pain under control.  The same month, her cataracts overwhelmed what was left of her sight. 

But none of this stopped her.  As Mehitabel would often say,

“There’s a dance in the old dame yet!” 

Late in August Dr. Brown, Serena’s Virginia vet, shook her head and said “Serena just doesn’t seem to understand how sick she is; she just keeps on keeping on.”  Her blood sugar continued to be high, but with considerably larger doses of insulin, her metabolism was serving her well.  Although you could still feel her ribs and spine, she was up from 11 to almost 18 pounds.  She had gone from a ragged, browning coat to a rich, filled-out black coat, and from an old lady to an active, middle-aged girl. 

The Re-entry…

When we brought Serena back to Churchton, she was the picture of health for a couple of days. It didn’t take her long to re-orient herself; she seemed to remember her former “digs” even though she was now sightless.

On the third morning, however, she became disoriented and went down.  We started the Karo syrup routine again.  We got a new protocol from Dr. Anna, including Vetsulin to replace her human insulin, and began to rebalance her regimen, with marginal success at first.  When she wouldn’t eat, we force-fed her a “slurry” of canned food pureed with water using a large syringe.  She hated it so much that she began snapping and biting.  Eventually she wised up, and the force feeding became less frequent as she discovered the bowl again!  She was up and down, gaining strength and interest in what was going on, but then losing energy, consuming more water, becoming very incontinent, and limping. 

Gradually, as she came around, she began to dance . . . toujours gai . . . toujours gai!

By the end of three weeks, she was back in balance and better than ever.  No one ever figured out why she “lost it” during that period!

 The Glory Days…

Serena slept in our bedroom at night, but not in bed, for fear she’d fall off.  Most nights she’d make it through; if not, she’d give a “woof-woof” and I’d be up in a heartbeat to treat her to a back yard outing.  

Most days, our other two Schips would have us up by 5 am.  Dot would take them for their initial walk of the day. But first, she would deposit Serena in bed with me for a half hour or more of valuable cuddle time.

She took three neighborhood walks with us daily.  She trusted us to keep her safe and on track.  This didn’t always happen, but if she took a detour into a ditch or a bump against a trash can, she’d take them completely in stride.  Even sightless, she was a better guard than any Schip we’ve ever had, sounding a raucous alarm whenever she heard the slightest perceived threat.  Her enthusiasm was contagious and laughable; she’d run around with stiff front legs, barking at the top of her lungs at everything she “saw” with her ears.

When she was not sleeping or guarding, she was likely to be as playful as our other guys.  She would come upon one of Allie’s toys and shake it wildly, or she’d settle down and chew on a discovered cow hoof or “Texas Tooth-pick.”  She continued to dance, and if she got excited enough, all four feet came of the ground!  She loved to discover a toy and shake it wildly.  She knew immediately when treats were being served and raced to the kitchen with the rest of the pack to get her share.   She rolled around on her back in joy, and she loved to be held that way.

Both the house and the back yard were mapped perfectly.  If we put something out of place, she simply found another route – some of them quite weird to us sighted animals.   Despite daily joint medication, damp days would be especially hard on her starboard aft limb, but she would still climb the three back steps without complaint. 

Most of all, she was always there -- never more than a foot or two from us.

She clearly knew why she was still of this earth, and she was grateful.

Our life was quite different.  Her special feeding and medication routines, including insulin injections, absorbed several hours daily.  There was never a period of more than five hours without at least one of us attending to her.  She still had ups and downs, of course, but we learned to sense fluctuations in her glucose level and “tweak” dosage of her meds on our own, with less frequent testing. 

But none of that mattered.

What mattered most was the opportunity to watch her thrive.

 
By the time we started hitting the road in our trailer, she was seriously pulling out of her post-transfer “slump” and settling down to her new routines quite nicely with our 9 year old rescue, Teddy Bear Onyx, our 3 year old Cameo Allegria of Midwatch, and our Maine Coon cat rescue, Sally.  Serena’s first trip, in mid-October, 2005, was attendance at the Colonial club’s Specialty.  She made many friends there, including Howard and Mary Cox, SCA national rescue coordinators.  The following March, she made a 3,000 mile journey through 9 states, attending the Greater St. Louis club’s Specialty, where she marched in their Castaways Parade and earned a ribbon.  Then she attended the annual Schipnick hosted by Al and Barb Lewis in Valdosta, Georgia and visited her “grand-parents” (Dot’s mom and dad) in St. Augustine.  She spent two weeks on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in May, took a month-long tour of New England in August, and was back at the Specialty in October for an encore performance.

The Rainbow Bridge…

Serena fans were treated to a periodic newsletter to keep her extended family up to date on her well-being and adventures. Early in December, 2006 we glowingly reported that, after expecting her not to survive her rescue, she was about to enjoy her second Christmas with us. 

She did.  But, ironically, on the day after Christmas, she had the first of an increasing number of seizures.  Over the course of the next two weeks, they ranged from disorientation, to rubbery legs, to inability to stand, to total incontinence, to unconsciousness.  On one occasion, upon waking up to the barking of a neighbor’s dog, she struggled from my arms and staggered across the lawn, barking at the top of her lungs, fully on duty. 

The recovery was just a little weaker each time.  A full blood work-up evidenced major progression of all her challenges.  She clung more and more to us, asking for help. 

In addition to Dr. Anna, we sought advice from every one we could think of in our vast and wonderful network of Schipperke friends.  Wisely, everyone offered valuable input but no one told us what to do. 

Rather than watch her suffer, we guided her across the Rainbow Bridge on January 8, 2007, to share her toujours gai with our first Schip, Barnacle and all the other worthy rescues who have gone before her.

Serena’s Impact…

In 602 bonus days in this world, with 7,000 miles of travel through seventeen states, Serena charmed hundreds of people with her tremendous courage and ever-present spirit -- from breeders to exhibitors to rescuers to folks who had never met a Schip before.

Our memories of Serena are glorious – and reinforced by the hundred-plus e-mails, cards, phone calls and flowers we received.  After her death, she was memorialized in Valdosta, and celebrated with a display at the GSL Specialty and a booth at the SCA National in Frederick, MD.  At the National, she received a special tribute and a beautiful Parade of Castaways rainbow ribbon.  She is also featured prominently in Midwest Schipperke Rescue’s wonderful book, Brotherhood of Castaways.

We greeted each day knowing how important we were to this beautiful lady

 and how much love and joy we were going to share with her. 

It didn’t take her death for us to realize that she was contributing far more to our lives

 than we ever could to hers.

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