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Ellie <3


I needed a long time and a lot of courage to finally write this post. Almost a year. First, because it is just too painful and it breaks my heart every time I try to remember all of it and write it on paper. Second, because I was afraid this post will not be understood. My intention is not to hurt anybody and misinterpreting the message would just bring attention to blaming and judging, which is the exact opposite of what I want. The only aim of this is to help, especially to people and puppies who have gone through or might be going through the same right now. And possibly prevent this from happening in the future and do the best for this wonderful breed who completely changed my life ever since Winnie entered into my life. And here the whole story starts - with my amazing little girl, who stole my heart, then tragically died and ever since, I have been trying and trying to get over this horrible loss. Ellie was born on the 27th of April 2018. Same day as my Winnie. I loved both of her parents and although I was not searching for a puppy then, I thought this was destiny (I sometimes believe in things like destiny, when I want to). I thought she was just sent to me from heaven and when I met her - I thought I actually was in heaven - she was probably the most perfect puppy I could ever dream of. She was so active, so naughty, climbing the little fence, following me all around, wanting to steal food from my pockets. A bit shy at first and then she suddenly decided I was her best and only friend in the world and would follow me like a shadow. She was so similar to Winnie that for a moment it felt like she came back. Everything was so beautiful that I thought I was dreaming and I will suddenly wake up to reality.

Ellie on the way home from France

Ellie on the way home from France. And so it was. Just that I didn't wake up to reality but the dream became the worst nightmare. 3 or 4 days after coming home, Ellie started vomiting. I panicked. A simple vomit should not worry me too much, I know. But I just panicked. My husband is a veterinarian, so I called him immediately and we started with some treatment - just normal treatment any puppy would get for vomiting. Her poop was normal though, she was happy and active, so she didn't show any other problems but vomiting. We still decided to do radiography, just to make sure there is no foreign object that could pass to her intestine and cause problems. We didn't find anything, but decided to check also by ultrasound. The veterinarian said everything seemed perfect but a small inflammation in her intestine. She said there were three possible diagnosis: a) a tumor, b) pyloric stenosis, c) gastritis. She said the possibility of a tumor in a 2-month-old puppy is very low, but still possible. Gastritis would be the most probable one and pyloric stenosis as a second option. I remember the first times she vomited it was her food. But then the vomiting changed and she wasn't vomiting food anymore, but water, and it was not really a vomit, but more like a gastric reflux. We decided to repeat the ultrasound and radiography and possibly do endoscopy if necessary. We went to a highly respected veterinarian which we trust a lot, just to get another opinion. The radiography was perfect and in ultrasound there was a slight inflammation of intestine again, but no sign of engrossed pylorus. He discarded the possibility of a foreign object in her body and the most probable diagnosis was gastritis again - he concluded endoscopy was not needed, we should just continue with medication and it would most probably get better. So we did... But the gastric reflux continued, like 15 seconds after every drink she "vomited" the water. I was devastated. But the worst was yet to come. About two days later, one afternoon I noticed her belly was abnormally big, like it would just explode. I spent 24/7 with her, so it was impossible she would have eaten too much and I never saw any excessive drinking either. I panicked because I was afraid of gastric dilatation. My husband was at the clinic, so I called him and said I was on my way there. When he saw her, he got really worried, he consulted with other veterinarians and they all agreed she needs to be operated - they needed to empty her stomach as soon as possible and while she was under anesthesia perform exploratory laparotomy on her to find what was causing the problems in her body. I was shocked - a surgery on a 2-month-old puppy, that was the first time I got really scared I might lose her. But it was the only way to save her, so I agreed. I was waiting in tears outside the surgery room, trembling, when I suddenly heard voices in panic, lots of walking and running, something was going really wrong. Ellie had a strong reaction to one of the medicaments accompanying the anesthetic procedure. She was not breathing, we were losing her. My husband's clinic is just a small normal clinic, we needed to get her to an animal hospital with better devices and more staff to save her life. We rushed to the car, one of the auxiliaries was holding her mouth open and tongue outside so that she was breathing a little, I was holding her, my husband was driving - to the nearest animal hospital. It was 20 minutes away, but it seemed to me like hours. A picture that will haunt me forever. My perfect puppy was dying in my arms. We could have killed ourselves during that ride, but nothing mattered, except for little Ellie. We arrived to the hospital, she was given almost no chance to survive. The anesthetist arrived soon and they tried to stabilize her condition - but the look on their faces said everything, nobody believed she would survive.

On the picture above you can see Ellie the morning before her belly got very big and we rushed to the clinic. Even in the morning it was quite big, but in the afternoon it got much worse. In the picture she is also closing her eyes from bright daylight.

About half an hour later, one of the assistants came out and said she was still alive, but her condition was very serious. They managed to sedate her using a different anesthetic procedure, but her heart and breathing was still much too weak. They sent us home and told us they will call by any change of her condition, but that we should be prepared for the worst. I spent my night next to the phone, at 2 o'clock it rang. I started crying and my husband picked up the phone. Ellie was alive. She was doing much better, the next day in the morning they will call again. A miracle, next morning she was out of danger. But she was so very weak that any kind of endoscopy or laparotomy would be too aggressive on her body, we needed to wait a few more days for her to recover. I went to visit her every day, as much as I was allowed to, it was so hard to see her only 20 minutes per day, so I spent the whole day just waiting for those 20 minutes to come, looking at the clock and walking up and down. She was doing so well. I have a friend whose friend was working at the same hospital, so I was constantly begging her to tell me how she was doing and to take care of my girl. She was doing really well, eating with appetite, but the reflux came back soon after a few days. They changed her diet, and it seemed to get better. She was soon well enough for endoscopy. First they tried with contrastive radiography but everything seemed perfect, the food was perfectly passing through her body. Endoscopy didn't show anything abnormal either. We still had to leave her in hospital just for a few days more. She was doing so well, even the reflux was getting better and better - the only thing that really worried us was that she was not gaining much weight, she still weighed less then 2 or 3 weeks ago when I got her. She weighed 2,5kg at 8 weeks and 2,2 kg at 10 or 11 weeks (I don't remember exactly). But after all she had gone through, that didn't seem to weird.

Ellie in hospital.

Some videos of visiting Ellie in hospital.

I almost forgot an important thing. Ever since I brought her home, my husband noticed she was closing eyes on the sun, much more than any other puppy we had had before, even the color of the eyes was very strange, bluish-green and dilated. At first we didn't give it too much importance, but with time it got worse so sometime in the middle of all this agony we took her to ophthalmologist. He said he has never seen such a case before, but he did mention he is most certain it is the consequence of bad nutrition and that she was way too thin. We explained to him that she had been very ill and had spent a lot of time in hospital, so then he was even more convinced this might be the cause. Ellie was too young for a more certain diagnosis, so he advised us to come back 6 months later, because her eyes might change and develop during growth.

Ellie's eyes.

Finally the day came when I was allowed to take her home. I woke up as the happiest person in the world. I arrived at the hospital, saw her and tears of happiness rolled over my face when I saw her. I stayed with her in one of the rooms while they were preparing all the papers for her to finally leave the hospital. But just after one minute the reflux again. And then again and again. And again. Her veterinarian entered with papers only to find me cleaning the vomiting all over the room. She told me it's the first day after a long time that it's so bad. They still said I could take her home and change her diet. But during the day the reflux got so bad that already the next day we drove her back to hospital where she stayed for a few more days. In a few days it got better again and I finally took her home. We tried with special an-allergenic food. Finally she was getting better and for some time she was perfect again, so we really believed she just had a very bad and rare allergy. No more reflux, she was starting to be herself again, playing, eating with great appetite. It was summer, we went on a planned vacation to to the north of Spain, in the Spanish Pyrenees. But only a few days later she started vomiting again - this time really vomiting all food that she ate. She was slowly losing energy, she was apathetic, sad. I noticed she wasn't peeing. Maybe once a day and very little. Her belly was getting bigger and bigger again. Everything was going down. My husband explained her case to many many veterinarians, if maybe somebody could have an idea what was wrong with her. I fell ill myself, too much stress, to much fear, everything was falling apart for me. We went to a veterinarian clinic nearby to repeat ultrasound or maybe try the last possible option - laparotomy. The veterinarian told us he has never seen such a case and that it would be better for us to drive to Andorra to animal hospital and see a specialist. So we did.

We arrived to Andorra and waited for a specialist, a veterinarian with many titles and good reputation. The state of Ellie when she arrived there was horrible. Her belly was so big that even veterinarians got scared by the look at it. They said they had to do all the tests necessary to diagnose her problem and told us they will call us the next day. The next day we finally got the diagnosis. Pyloric stenosis. It was one of the three possible diagnosis the first ultrasound veterinarian gave as an option. But since all other ultrasounds after that one did not show and engrossed pylorus, we focused on other possibilities. The veterinarian told us this could be operated, but for Ellie it was unfortunately too late. We lost her. Forever.

Little Ellie <3 :'( I will try to focus on really important things from here on, not on my feelings. I tried to get in contact with the owners of Ellie's brother and sisters (there were 4 in the litter) and the breeder. Just by looking at the pictures I found on facebook, I knew immediately they all have the same disease as Ellie. So I contacted them all three and told them all the story about Ellie and the diagnosis. Ellie's brother died. But for the other two sisters it was still time to operate them - they had a surgery soon after and both survived. Just about a month ago I met a pyrshep puppy with the same disease, I was lucky to meet him in person and the owner is a friend of mine, so I knew all about the case and my husband could help with the diagnosis, sending all the reports and pictures from Ellie and similar cases. Despite all that, they took their time to diagnose the problem, but luckily soon enough to save him. He was operated yesterday and is doing well. Months after that I learned about more and more cases similar to Ellie's.

Some pictures of Ellie's brother and sisters, pay attention to their eyes and belly. I do have other pictures of other pyrsheps with the same disease confirmed, but because of publishing rights I will not post them here. I am writing this in order to warn breeders and owners of the possible symptoms of pyloric stenosis, because the disease is not at all easy to diagnose, many of the cases were diagnosed wrongly or too late. With an early diagnosis the dog can be operated and live a long happy life. The symptoms are not equally visible all the time, they might disappear for a certain period of time and the dog can seem completely normal and healthy, therefore the diagnosis is so difficult. In Ellie's case, what really didn't help was that her symptoms disappeared after the time she had spent in hospital - she was given food through a vein for almost a week and her pylorus looked normal in endoscopy and contrastive radiography was perfect while in hospital. But on her second endoscopy in Andorra, things looked really bad already. The symptoms of Ellie were: -dilated eyes, looking the same color all over with no clear pupil, bluish-green -closing eyes on daylight, avoiding sun and bright light (according to the ophthalmologist these eyes are only the consequence of bad nutrition in a puppy caused by problems with absorbing food -huge belly -gastric reflux, usually very soon after drinking

-vomiting, usually very soon after eating

-not gaining weight

-sadness and no energy

-low appetite

-no peeing and pooping Another purpose of this article is to warn breeders about breeding combinations. I do not know 100% what the cause of this disease is, but I am 99% it is hereditary. The most important factor in developing the disease is the inbreeding coefficient. All of the puppies with a confirmed diagnosis have the same dogs (probably carriers) on both sides of the pedigree, their coefficient is from 8 - 13 in only 4 generations, but a lot higher if we look further back, while the same carriers in combination with other lines did not produce puppies with the disease. So the dogs who are possible carriers do not have to be excluded from breeding, but for sure it is important to breed these dogs with dogs from completely different lines and try to achieve inbreeding coefficient to be the closest to 0 as possible. This is not a scientific article, so some things may not be confirmed or accurate, I am just trying to help to fight against this problem in the breed. Again, I hope this article will not be misunderstood, I don't want to harm anybody, quite on the contrary, my only purpose is to prevent somebody going through the same I have gone through and especially to prevent any innocent puppy from suffering what my Ellie has suffered.


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