The Hachi Chronicle

Hachi seems physically completely recovered from his hemorrhagic diarrhea. It was such a scary illness. I've never seen one of our young dogs so obviously gravely ill. He was unable to eat or drink and pathologically subdued. I repeatedly checked that he was still breathing. 

In the midst of it, we had a lot of trouble getting vets to help us. They'd say things like "we don't have time to treat Hachi today" or "he must come to the hospital to have another full exam before we can prescribe for him" (when he'd been in for a sedated full exam the day before - and we felt that the stress of another exam would hurt him).

It's the first time that we've ever had a dog like Hachi as part of our family. He's so fearful and reactive that it does require extra time and carefulness to treat him, even when he's wearing a muzzle. Was the reluctance to treat him because he's a fearful and reactive dog? I pondered that question many times during the crisis. For now, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the vets.  We've never experienced that before. Perhaps the pandemic and the closure of a nearby vet hospital conspired to make them insanely busy.

Last Saturday, we felt like we *had* to do something. Perhaps I was overreacting but I honestly felt like he might slip away if we didn't get some fluids and medicines into him. In that time of terrible angst, it was our behavioral vet who was our savior. I am so grateful for her guiding us via text well into Saturday night. She made his downward spiral turn around. After she found a hospital who would sell us fluids and injectable meds, she then coached us on administering them to Hachi. The change in Hachi after that treatment was nothing short of miraculous. 

One thing that I've learned is that we will need to advocate for Hachi more than for any of our other dogs. It's one thing for a pet professional to verbally laud our efforts in rescuing and rehabbing him but it's quite another for them to come through with care when he needs it. We will hold our behavioral vet close because she truly understands. Helping dogs like Hachi is her calling.

I fully expect to see Hachi playing with Shyla like this again soon. His behavior has returned to normal - it was indeed a blip that he acted aggressively toward Shyla while sick. We are staying at our old place to avoid subjecting him to the stress of living in a construction zone.  Our old place is great for stress-reduction but there's no place for them to run and play like at Lab Valley. Like so many things, it's a tradeoff.

We are so glad that Hachi has mended.