Took Dante to Rea (the vet) this morning. She'd had a horrible event.
One of her two dogs was strychnine poisoned, possibly maliciously, and
died despite all of Rea's attempts to save her. Rea did what she always
feels is best and kept hoping that Spot wasn't so poisoned she would
die, so did not euthanize her. But the poor dog did die, after 7 hours
of what Rea described as agony. Rea has a very very old dog named Baas,
and Spot was his ears and eyes and Baas often followed her to deal with
life. Now Baas is terribly depressed, and Rea is afraid she will lose
him too. Poor woman.

About Dante, she changed her diagnosis, saying she believes he has
intermittent arrhythmia, plus not enough oxygen because of problems
with our 8,000 foot altitude. She says Dante has the same thing as both
Baas and herself. She believes that big dogs are much more prone to
altitude problems as they age -- she said that Dante is the third dog
(in addition to Baas I believe) whom she's seen with this. She thinks
Dante will improve once in Texas.

She no longer thinks Dante's heart has any mechanical problem.

I have to say that I am puzzled, but glad of the good news. Meanwhile
Dante is a lot better than those two days when I was reporting his big
problems. It's all a big relief.

[Posted in FML 7770]