Myles, the Million Dollar Havanese

Myles, wine tasting.

For anyone out there who has ever owned a dog, I’m sure you are aware that the most expensive part of the whole process is definitely NOT the part where you pay the breeder for said puppy. Myles has definitely NOT been an exception to that rule. In fact, I’m pretty sure that someday soon there will be a “Myles the Dog” wing at the UC Davis Veterinary School funded by yours truly. Yep, its a good thing that I have a job at the moment, ‘cuz all my money is going to the dog.

Let me start by saying that Myles (and all his expensive issues) is the (dog) love of my life. Floyd, mommy loves you too but for the sake of this blog I am just referring to dogs over fifteen pounds. Up until 2009 Myles (at age two) had really only suffered from ailments that were common place for fluffy little white lapdogs that rarely venture outdoors and are hardly ever boarded – stubbed paw pad, swimmers ear, thorn stuck in his unmentionables, conjunctivitis. So what if Myles was a regular at the local vet, at least he was pretty healthy, well at least until the Summer of ’09.

It all started when I came home from a sales trip and Myles barely got up to greet me. I took him to the vet who (long story short) basically tested him for just about everything under the sun including rare mosquito born illnesses that Myles would have only contracted had I allowed him to take “summer abroad” in Africa. Myles never tested positive for anything, he was a complete conundrum. A conundrum who with every week got sicker and sicker with a fever that kept creeping higher and higher.

Myles and Floyd, road-trippin'

Fast forward about six weeks and Myles still had a fever around 107 and was now going downhill rapidly. He would not eat, I couldn’t get any medication in him and now he was refusing water as well. He had lost 7lbs and was now weighing in around 11lbs. I was a mess; Floyd was a mess; we didn’t know what to do. It was about 10PM one night, I had Myles in a sink full of ice cubes and I was trying to force him to drink some water through a turkey baster and it wasn’t working.  I called the VMS of Campbell (not a fan) as a last resort and they couldn’t see him for two days. I told them he wouldn’t make it that long. They just told me “sorry”.

It was about 2 in the morning now and I was on the Internet trying to find an answer. Suddenly I got an email from Dane. Dane (at the time) only knew about Myles through me, never having met him in person. He had heard his story at running club that night and had e-mailed me because (after talking to his parents) wanted to suggest to me UC Davis. In fact he had even called UC Davis at 2am (what a guy!) to make sure they could take Myles on an emergency basis in the morning.

So there I was at 5am the next morning driving myself up to Davis with a very sick dog. By the time I got to the hospital Myles was no longer moving and was bleeding from the mouth. They immediately admitted us into the Emergency Room. Myles was in the hospital for about a week. In the beginning they were not sure he was going to make it, in fact they said he wouldn’t have made it another 12 hours at home. Through the weekend the student and resident stayed with him constantly, even coming in on their limited time off to try and get him to eat. Finally after a few days of touch and go I got a call that he had licked up the gravy from a tuna fish can. By the following morning he was snarfing down everything that was put in front of him. After seven weeks of preparing myself for the worst it looked like Myles was getting back to his ‘ole hungry self.

This story could (and maybe should?) have turned out much differently. Had it not been for Dane, Myles would not be here today to tear through countless toilet paper rolls and make “potties” on the carpet. All joking aside, in 2009, at that point in my life, had I lost Myles, a part of me would have died right there alongside him.

Surprisingly, I am not really that much of a romantic.  Yeah sure, I cried during “Kate and Leopold” but I (normally) don’t really believe in fate or destiny or whatever it is you would call this. But I can’t deny the fact that for some reason I was introduced to Dane, my fiancé, that summer and maybe, just maybe, we are linked with some sort of higher power, we were meant to be. Dane is my oyster.

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