http://petcharts.purina.com/Default.aspx?day=2009-4-13

UPDATE 04/14: Button’s picture hit #1 for the day, and is only a handful of votes away from being #1 for the week! Lets see if we can get her to #1 for the month!

This is the pic (had I known anyone was going to look at it, I totally would have cropped it better):

Button @ 2.5 Months

Here are a few new photos of Button the Brave (Butt for short):

Button

As mentioned, we recently got a new puppy named Button. Now having had a few days to get to know our newest family member, it’s neat to see her personality shining through.

Addie was the first time I ever raised a puppy, and so everything was new. I had no way of knowing what was “puppy behavior” and what was “Addie behavior” – but now with a new puppy, and armed with fresh puppy-rearing experience, the differences are more easily seen.

Whereas Addie was a friendly but shy puppy, Button is all about adventure. She gets into, under and on top of everything. We have a small set of stairs in our apartment (just three steps), and despite moving in here when Addie was 6 months old, she had trouble figuring them out for about the first week we lived here. Button, at 2.5 months, had them nailed her first day.

She’s now applying this knowledge to get on the ledge where we keep our turtle tank, to get at things on the coffee table and she’s half way to scaling the sofa and our bed.

Button on a Ball

She’s also not quiet. Well, for a puppy at least. She’s not found her bark yet, but that doesn’t stop her from trying. She lets out little whines and yelps whenever she’s lonely, has to pee, has to poop or just bored. This is in sharp contrast to the once a month bark that Addie would let out (startling herself as much as us).

The third difference is a bit of a godsend. Button came pre-installed with Paper Training v1.0. I am guessing the vet we bought her from had something to do with that, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

When we got Addie we lived in a 3rd floor apartment, and there’s just no practical way to house-train a dog by running down 3 flights of stairs. We tried our best to get her to go on paper, but she just never seemed to pick it up – causing us endless cleanups and wet socks. However, after moving into our current place, that has a backyard, she house broke herself in no time.

Because Button hasn’t had all her shots yet, we’re not able to let her wander around the backyard. I was initially nervous that she’d also ignore the carefully laid paper and just go wherever, but her first night here she illustrated she understood that the paper was the proper place to go. She still has little accidents, as puppies do, but she gets it right about 70% of the time – and for a dog that pisses and poops her body weight a day, that’s a decent percentage.

Button on Flickr

One step in that process is laying her to rest. You would think that with everyone and their cousin having a dog in this city that there would be a well-developed system for handling the dead bodies of our four-legged friends. Nope.

Initially we had planned to bury her someplace near our home here in Suzhou. To do so we would have had to sneak out at night, under cover of darkness, shovels in hand – the picture of a twisted Scooby Doo episode – and bury her before anyone noticed what we were up to. A problem in itself, this awkward affair is compoundly complicated when you consider there are few areas in Suzhou, or any Chinese city for that matter, that aren’t likely to get dug up for development in the next 6 to 12 months.

With the images of Addie’s disturbed remains being churned into foundation for a new over-priced expat sanctuary, we switched our focus to cremation. Problem being that Suzhou has no animal cremation facilities. Always helpful, the vet said he knew of one in Hangzhou and another in Shanghai.

After a bit of hunting (and reading about this scary experience), we found that Shanghai has a big government-invested crematorium for animal body disposal. Only problem was getting Addie’s body to Shanghai.

Peter, the owner of Wàng Wàng Gōng Guǎn (汪旺公馆 – on Sú Xiù Lù/苏绣路) – the vet/pet shop that had been helping us care for Addie over the last week or so, volunteered to take us, all we had to do was cover gas and tolls. A remarkable guy, coupled with their care and service, I really can’t recommend them enough.

After borrowing his friend’s car, and loading Addie’s body (which they were storing at their shop) in the trunk, Peter picked us up and I endured one of the scariest car rides of my life (and I’ve had a few). He spent more time whizzing 140 km/h down the shoulder than he did on the roadway proper. But, he got us there in one piece.

The crematorium is in the middle of no where, which considering its function, probably makes sense. Should anyone need to find it, the address is:

上海市奉贤浦南病死畜禽无害化处理站
上海市奉贤区庄行镇浦卫公路934号
Tel：(021)57462612/57462143
Web: www.pnwhcl.org/p.htm (translated)

If you’re in Shanghai, it may just be easier to talk to your vet about it. I believe there’s inner-city pickup/disposal.

I’ve never been to a crematorium of any kind before, so pulling up to the large tree-lined compound I wasn’t sure what to expect.

We were greeted by a rather helpful attendant who instructed us to park and come into the office. We filled out some paperwork and paid the fee (200 RMB to have her body cremated solo). We were then asked to give him the body, to which it appeared he would then pedal to a large building in the back of the complex with a smoke-billowing chimney sticking out of it.

For the sake of imagery here, Addie’s body had been wrapped in blankets and placed in a large box when they collected her from our home on Sunday, and so wasn’t laying exposed in the trunk of the car.

Removing the box from the trunk the man exclaimed that it was far too big for him to take and that we should drive it the 50m back to the incinerator. This suited us just fine, as we wanted to be there to assure they properly handled the situation (ie. didn’t just dump her in a bin and hand us a cup of random ash).

The atmosphere was about what you’d expect from a government-run facility that’s primary purpose was to dispose of dead livestock (deadstock?). We didn’t get much of a tour, but before carrying Addie’s body inside the barn-sized building, I couldn’t help but notice a huge bin of pig corpses further back on the lot. Kind of creepy.

It didn’t take long once inside for the workers to remove Addie from the box and, still wrapped in the blanket and sheets, put her in the furnace. We were then gently rushed out of the building by the front gate attendant, explaining that the area wasn’t the safest place due to many of the dead corpses in the back having succumbed to disease. Again, kind of creepy.

With 40 minutes to wait for the process to complete and the ashes to be returned, Maggie and I walked around the impressive building that houses the facilities offices, washrooms and … a cafeteria. Have I mentioned, creepy?

The time passed and eventually the attendant appeared with our small urn, wrapped in newspaper and still warm. We got back in the car and returned to Suzhou (in pure Battle For Endor fashion) in a rather somber, but satisfied, manner.

We will hold on to Addie’s ashes until the weather improves and we can take them and spread them someplace beautiful and befitting.

A moment for thanks

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has given their condolences to Maggie and I during this rather rough time. I’ve received numerous comments, Twitter tweets and e-mails offering support and well-wishes. Thank you everyone, it is truly touching that so many of you, most whom I’ve never met in person, took the time to do so.

Also, thank you to Kenneth Tan and the Shanghaiist for picking up Addie’s tragic story and sharing it with a larger audience. Though it may be too late now, if her story can help save anyone else from going through what we went through, it was well worth sharing.

Update: Also thanks to Richard Brubaker and All Roads for elavating the exposure of this horrible tragedy.

It’s been a week, and with three days to go, Addie’s still putting up a good fight. She’s looking a bit worse for wear though, and despite us doing our best to clean her, smells of a rather horrible combination of stomach juices and sweet glucose water we have to feed her. Additionally, her liver failing has caused her to now be suffering from ascites, or fluid in the abdomen.

The ascites is creating pressure on her diaphragm, which is causing her breathing to be a bit laboured. Whether it’s the ascites or another side-effect of liver failure, she’s also continually having stomach/GI cramping, causing her to suffer quite a bit of discomfort.

The hardest thing remains keeping food and medicine in her stomach. The SAMe tablets that she’s on take a long time to dissolve, and it’s a rare thing indeed for her to go through long periods where she doesn’t add a new technicoloured stain to her bedsheet.

Though the above may seem like she’s in bad shape, and she is, I’m still hopeful. She’s been in roughly the same shape for the last two days or so, and the ascites swelling has gone down a bit. She looks tired, and is no doubt in pain, but we’re not throwing in the towel yet.

Obviously the question of when we surrender is close on both Maggie’s and my mind. Maggie asked me today when we will have to make the tough decision to put Addie down so as not to force her to suffer needlessly. My answer centers around that last bit. Needlessly.

She’s young and she’s tough. She has the will to survive this, or she would have already given up. Now, I understand that it may come down to her just not having the physical strength to beat this, but I feel we need to make sure that we give her every opportunity to win.

It’s impossible not to anthropomorphise a bit here, so let me dive in.

I look at Addie’s situation as if it were me. There are a lot of situations where if I was in a lot of pain I would want to die and would hope (if I was not able to express it) that people who love me would help me do so. All of those situations revolve around chronic, unmanageable, quality of life destroying pain.

In the short-term, it would suck, but I would be more than willing to suffer the pain, a lot of pain, to keep my life. Of course, there’s nothing good about it. It’s pain, it’s illness, it’s discomfort, it’s humiliating, it’s tiring, it’s messy. And it’s hard to watch someone (or some dog) endure. But me not wanting to watch as my dog fights for her life is not reason enough, in my mind, for us to make the decision to end it. Not yet.

Maggie, quite logically, asked then how we’ll know it’s time. I really can’t say, other than to say that we’ll just know. I think we’ll know when she’s stopped fighting. She asked if I thought we were unnaturally keeping her alive through the use of medicine/IVs, but I don’t think so. She’s not on machines. Her body is still doing everything itself, and the IVs, nutrients and pills we’re giving her all work to keep it that way.

Basically, what it comes down to for me is – if she’s willing to fight, I’m going to keep fighting for her too. Human or not, I don’t think it’s my right to take that away from her.

The Lighter Side…

It’s New Year’s Eve – let me leave this with a less-heavy message. I’m off to cook up some steaks and baked potatoes, cork a bottle of wine, heat up some mulled wine, kick back and greet the new year with a cigar.

Wishing everyone a very happy new year and a prosperous 2009. 新年快乐!

After posting the other day about the possibility of her having come into contact with aflatoxin contaminated Optima dog food, a visit to the vet yesterday confirmed it. Her liver is shutting down.

We had hoped that her fussy eating lately was just her usual finicky self. However, when the whites of her eyes yellowed yesterday and she peed in the house (something she never does) we called up the vet and had them send over a car – the downside of having no car in China is that most taxis wont take you with a large dog.

Upon the recommendation of our pet shop, we took Addie to Cao Lang Feng Pet Hospital. The service was great, if somewhat typically health care in style (lots of smiles, but little direct information). Addie had blood taken and we then waited 30 minutes or so for the results to come out.

While waiting we asked some of the vet nurses (assistant vets? what’s the terminology here?) if they had seen a lot of dogs coming in because of the Optima dog food problem and they confirmed they had.

The blood results showed she was definitely symptomatic of liver failure due to aflatoxin exposure.

The vet explained that dogs afflicted are showing about a 20% chance of recovery (a euphemism for saying that 4/5ths of the dogs are dying). He prescribed some liver protecting medication and told us all we can do is take care of her best we can and hope she pulls through.

The medication is all done via IV, but the vet gave us the option of leaving her there for them to care for her or letting us take her home to care for her. We decided on bringing her home, figuring that the cold, strange and noisy kennel was no place for her to try and fight this.

Essentially, the vet said that once diagnosed most dogs were either improved or dead after 10 days – so that’s our time frame.

While waiting for the medication to be prepared, some representatives from the dog food distributor arrived. I’m not sure if they were from Optima (as they were Chinese, that’s unlikely), Natrual Pet (the Taiwanese importer to the Mainland) or the local Chinese representatives for Natural Pet (most likely).

Corporate Damage Control

I watched Addie while Maggie went into a room with them and talked about the situation. They essentially laid out that they would cover all medical costs related to this, and in the event of her death they would come up with compensation of some sort. How exactly do they calculate that? Pro-rated from time of birth with a bonus for a good temperament and numbers of hours trained? I realize they’re managing the damage and just doing their jobs, but fuck – assholes. They very likely killed my dog and actually had the audacity to tell Maggie they’ll reimburse us based on book value for the breed plus a bit for pain and suffering.

The one good thing that came out of the conversation is that we learned a bit more about what happened. Apparently the Olympics are to blame. Fucking Olympics. Allegedly, the reason for the contamination is because during the Olympics the Chinese gov’t set tight restrictions on ports of entry for importing. All the dog food was therefore brought in through the hot and humid Guangzhou, where it sat in a non-temperature controlled warehouse long enough for the aflatoxin to develop in the food.

Back at home

Getting Addie back home we set her up with a custom rigged IV suspender (a step-ladder and a coat hanger – I felt like frigin’ MacGyver). It’s a bit weird giving your dog an IV, but they made it as easy as possible by installing an “butterfly” in her leg by which we can just plug in the new IV to.

She was prescribed four medications, and about 10 minutes into the second bag of medi-juice she started fidgeting and her lips swelled up. Almost immediately after pulling out the IV she let loose from both ends. Our night was going swell. While I sat with Addie, as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness, Maggie called the vet in a panic.

With no way to get Addie to the vet, we were referred to a pet shop in SIP (our district) that had the shot she needed to reverse the allergic reaction. Unfortunately, no cab was going to take Addie, even if we could get her out to the road. Miracuously the vet called up a staff member and sent him out to our house with the needles. By the time he arrived Addie was nearly normal (thank god), but we stuck her just to be sure.

By the time we were finally able to get the next IV into her it was midnight, and we were completely beat. Rather than have both of us fight to stay awake with her, we decided to take shifts. Maggie went first, and I promptly slept through the first shift change, finally taking over at about 4:30 until the last drop dripped at about 7am.

And that’s the story of how I discovered there was no Santa Clause. Fat man never showed.

Christmas Morning … later

After a bit of sleep, we got up and did our best to have a Christmas morning. I did a bit of a fry-up, we exchanged gifts and then went back to worrying about Addie.

We took her back down to the vet at about 1:30 today and got more blood work done. No major changes, but her platelet count (I’m guessing by the rough translation I got) was lower – not great.

The vet suggested that while we were there we again give her the IV she had a reaction to last night, but add in some anti-allergy stuff. Though the reaction wasn’t as bad, she still began getting irritated and her face began to swell a bit – so that stuff’s out. We stuck around a bit longer to let Addie’s veins suck back one of the other bags of meds – one less thing we’d have to do later at home and nice to have the vet show us how the damn IV works (a day late).

We’re home now, just hooking Addie up to one of two more IVs she’ll need to have tonight and trying to figure out when best to give her some food and a pill she needs to have (but always ends up throwing up a couple hours after taking it).

To her credit, Addie is being a complete doll about everything. She’s let an endless line of people jab her with sharp objects, stick chemicals in her, push pills down her throat and force her into cars (she’s NOT a car dog). Through it all she sort of lumbers along, only showing enough distaste for it to let us know she’s not pleased about it but trusts that we know what we’re doing.

I wish we did. This is easily one of the most difficult things I’ve had to deal with. Not having any control or real understanding of what is happening is not a feeling I will be looking to repeat.

Apparently since the end of November about 30 dogs have died in the Yangtze Delta (Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, etc.) of liver complications – and they all ate Optima dog food.

According to the pet shop, the food was contaminated with “黄曲霉素”, or aflatoxin, an extremely toxic and carcinogenic fungus that can contaminate grains, spices and nuts. In 2006 it was aflatoxin that was responsible for a number of dog deaths that had eaten contaminated Diamond dog food.

The Chinese message boards are buzzing with chatter about this news about Optima (see Google search for Optima’s Chinese name: 优格狗粮), but we’ve not seen anything from “official” channels yet.

Adding confusion is that the message boards are reporting that the China-distributed Optima is manufactured in Australia – which is in conflict with the big “Made in the USA” image on Optima’s Web site.

This is particularly scary for us, as Addie has been very fussy about her food and hasn’t been eating it without some coaxing on our end. And then the other day she threw up – all matching the symptoms of aflatoxin exposure. However, they also match the symptoms of a dog in general, so we’re hopeful. Also, that she’s not lethargic is a good sign she wasn’t exposed.

Here’s what little I know:

Optima Professional Pet Foods is a brand under the Doane International Pet Products. According to the Optima flyer we had lying around the dog food is imported into China through Taiwanese company Natural Pet and then distributed in Mainland China via 北京裕康园商贸有限公司 (Beijing) and 上海瑞宠商贸有限公司 (Shanghai).

Am still waiting for a response from Optima. Meanwhile, we’ve switched Addie to a combination of Purina Pro Plan and Natura Innova – credit to our pet shop, they drove to our house, examined Addie for signs of liver problems (yellowing of the skin/gums/eyes, and enlarging of the abdomen) and switched out all our Optima dog food.

For now we’re just going to watch her closely for any unusual behavior. If anything changes we’ll be taking her to the vet right away, despite the fact that if she has been exposed to aflatoxin and is suffering from liver failure, there’s little a vet can do.

“Ryan, can you come outside for a minute, I need a hand.”

In slippers and pajamas I wander out into the apartment building’s entrance to see what’s going on and find Kevin carefully examining what looks to be a couple pieces of paper.

“I’ve got a snake,” Kevin says, too focused on the critter to see my surprise.

Turns out that he had innocently thrown a few stickers that the security guards put on his bike (to tell him not to park in the landing) on the ground the night before. In what, we can only assume, was an attempt to score a free meal, a small snake managed to get himself completely and utterly stuck to all three stickers.

I tried to pull the stickers off, but they weren’t having any of it and began taking scales with them. So, with only a quick question of “do you think it’s poisonous?” between us, Kevin and I shooed (an all too willing to be shooed at the site of a snake) Maggie out of the kitchen and set to freeing our no-legged friend.

The snake, which was at most eight or nine inches long, was a bit tense when put it under running water, but ever so slowly we managed to free the little guy. Once freed, we snapped a few photos before putting him in a tupperware bin for transport to a nearby park.

I’m not sure if it was the snake’s small size, or its gratefulness at us freeing it, but not once did it open its mouth or appear threatening at all. And thankfully so, as Kevin learned later the darn thing is, in fact, poisonous.

According to Danwei’s “The Snakes of Beijing” guide (yeah, surprised me they had one too), our little stuck on stickers buddy is a Banded Red Snake.

The Banded Red Snake is one of the most widely distributed snakes in China. It is found in all of the suburban districts and counties. In the 1980s, these snakes were still being found in parks and gardens inside the Third Ring Road, even though they are nocturnal and thus difficult to spot. Perhaps because they like to lurk in old houses, all the renovation and rebuilding has caused their numbers to decline. Now they are only found in certain places, and are extinct from many areas.

The tradeoff is that it rains non-stop. We go from rainy season to typhoon season back to rainy season. It is a stark contrast to my days up in Dalian that, for all its brown-grassed winters, has a huge amount of sunshine.

Which makes this past week a bit of an anomaly. We’ve had almost seven days of straight sunshine.

Normally I wouldn’t complain – and I’m not. I swear, I’m not. But after paying our community’s groundskeeper to whipper-snip our backyard the other day, we discovered the long green grass on top was just a ruse, and underneath is nothing but dry straw-like lawn.

I can honestly say I never imagined that I’d be uttering the words “I wish I owned a sprinkler” while still living in China. But – there we are.

I turn 31 next week, and nothing drills home that age more than the fact that I am bitching about the amount of sunshine and wishing I had more lawn equipment.

Arg.

The physics of a puppy astound me. I swear more comes out of her than goes in.

But for every ounce of patience she takes from me, she gains back points from the fact that she can be entertained for 10 minutes just by putting a towel over her head (she’s trying to navigate her way out as I type).

Just thought I’d post a photo that pretty much sums up my day.