Sloan (part 2)

After we got Sloan’s megaesophagus sort of figured out we started working on training and normal dog stuff. We still had Gunner, so we did day to day training, learning to walk on leash and going to off leash dog parks and practising his recall. He was a quick learner. And although we couldn’t do clicker training with him because we couldn’t just hand out treats, unless it was close to meal time so he could sit in his chair, he was still a fast study. Very eager to please us no matter what.
He LOVED fetch and was a genius at catching the Frisbee. Gunner was good at it, but Sloan was an expert. I wasn’t always the best at “good” throws but Sloan rarely missed. He was amazingly athletic and agile for a 110lb dog.

Sloan also had the patience of a saint, it didn’t matter how big or small the dog was he would adjust how he played with them so that he never hurt them. When he was playing with the baby chihuahua (Nixon, in the photos below) there were a few times where my heart skipped a beat, Nixon was the size of Sloan’s leg and they were chasing each other around, I kept worrying that Sloan would step on him. However Sloan never missed a step, they played for hours and no “accidents” at all.

He displayed that same level of patience and gentleness to all sizes and ages of children as well. I did my nieces baby pictures when she was 9 days old, and got some fantastic ones of 4 month old Sloan laying calmly beside her. He was also part of my nephews newborn photoshoot, but he wasn’t a puppy anymore. It was amazing to watch him around kids. He was so calm and gentle.

We lost Gunner when Sloan was just over 1, he didn’t seem to be fazed by it all, but was a huge comfort to us as we were grieving. It was like he knew what we needed.

He got to be a big brother when he was 3. We had a stray puppy show up at our cabin on Canada day weekend. He was skin and bones, and had a terrible hair coat, but he was a fiesty little thing and Sloan loved him. He thought we had gotten him the best present ever. It was so funny to watch them together. We kept the puppy for the weekend, planning on bringing him to a rescue when we got back to the city. But after having him with us for the weekend we realized that everything really does happen for a reason and he was the perfect fit for our family. So we kept him. We named him Rosco, and he and Sloan were inseparable. Rosco was a nervous guy, but seemed to build confidence every day. I’m sure partly due to how great Sloan was with him.

Sloan was part of our family for 3 short years. Not near long enough. We brought him home on September long weekend and lost him the end of September 3 years later. He was the 3rd dog we lost in 3 years, and I’m not going to lie, it almost broke me. I was devastated. We had done everything we could and thought we had everything under control with his megaesophagus and then one morning he vomited (not regurgitated) but heaved and vomited. After he did that he didn’t want to sit in his chair. He fought to get out shortly after I put him there and didn’t want to eat, just wanted out. So we went to work that day and he regurgitated a few times and just wasn’t himself. So off to the vet we went. We did some x-rays but couldn’t see anything, so I brought him home and tried to put him in his chair again. This time he really fought and he turned a little blue. So we rushed back to the vet clinic. We thought maybe he had something we couldn’t see lodged in his esopagus, so we anaesthetized him and tried to pass a stomach tube. It wouldn’t go, so we weren’t sure what was going on. But while we were doing that he coded (died). The Vet and I (I’m a registered Veterinary technologist) did cpr and got him back. But now we were really stumped and out of ideas on what was going on and it was now a full on emergency where every decision could be life or death. We called the Vet college and rushed him there. The Vet driving and me riding in the back with him (breathing in his endotracheal tube because he still wasn’t breathing well). They met us in the parking lot and rushed him to the back to start treatment and tests while someone else came to ask us a bunch of questions. My Vet called my hubby and told him what was going on and that he should come and meet me at the college and then she went home. He coded 3 more times while we were there and no one seemed to know what was going on to cause it. So I asked if we could go see him, said goodbye, told him he didn’t have to fight anymore, told him he was such a great dog and that we loved him and asked them to euthanize him. I left in a daze, what had went wrong, what did I do to cause this. I didn’t sleep, both my husband and I were in shock and poor Rosco had reverted to his nervous self.

The next morning I called the Vet college to ask them to perform a post mortem. I needed to know what happened. They told me it would take 2 weeks to get results, I was fine with that, I just needed to know what happened. The Vet from the college called me back that evening. She was amazed, had never seen anything like it, had only read about it, apparently when he vomited that morning his stomach has degloved (the inside tore away from the outside) and it had intussusepted into his esopagus (basically his stomach inside ended up inside-out trapped in his esopagus) and it was already going necrotic (the tissue was dying). There was nothing that anyone could have done. It’s rare, in fact in the 9 years I worked in clinic I had never heard of it. And the numerous veteranians I have talked to about it since hadn’t ever seen it either, just read about it. He was one of a kind right until they end. The knowledge that I couldn’t have done anything to help him made it a little easier. I stopped questioning every decision and just grieved. I missed him so much. And still miss him. He was one of a kind in so many way. RIP Sloan.