Nala Rose

We are James and Chantal Rose and our fur baby’s name is Nala. Our girl is extremely sick, and unfortunately we are in a position of needing to ask for help from our community and loved ones.

Nala first started showing signs of illness about 5 weeks ago when she started to not want her bully sticks, her absolute favourite treat. We thought maybe she was tired of them, as she was very fickle in regards to food when she was younger. Sadly, this was not the case. Over the following week and a half, she began to turn her nose up to her kibble, which she devoured with vigour normally. We grew extremely concerned with this behaviour plus the addition of diarrhea and over that weekend called the vet to discuss her condition. The vet confirmed that she had seen an increased amount of dogs with gut disturbances in our area over the previous month so we dropped off a stool sample and were prescribed probiotics and given direction to feed her bland foods such as rice and boiled chicken. The stool sample came back negative for what had been tested for, and as it was now mid-week and she still was not eating very much and continued to have diarrhea which now included mucous, it was decided we should investigate more thoroughly. Blood cultures as well as a more in depth stool analysis was done. Blood tests showed a possible thyroid issue, so a free T4 test was done which confirmed hypothyroidism. Further stool analysis also confirmed she had a bacterial infection called Campylobacter. Nala continued to refuse any food, only sparingly eating treats here and there. We asked a couple of our friends and neighbours to attempt to feed her at this point as we figured we were becoming part of the issue by attempting to get her to eat, not to mention all the medication we were having to try to get her to ingest. Our poor girl was on 9.5 pills 3 times a day for the bacterial infection, thyroid medication twice a day, an anti-nausea medication, and an appetite stimulant. This past Monday, June 10, we took her for a CT that revealed a number of issues. The appearance of her intestinal tract is consistent with Irritable Bowel Disease, her spine has bony processes evident of spondylosis, her right hip is showing degeneration consistent with large breed dogs, and her lungs have 4 nodules which at this time are too small to biopsy. We have been advised we will have to repeat the CT scan in 4-6 weeks to assess the size - should the nodules grow during this time, we would expect a biopsy to confirm cancer.

Unfortunately, over the past week, there has been minimal improvement. Nala has now lost 20 lbs, and is quickly losing the strength she has remaining. We made the decision this afternoon to take her to our local emergency clinic after a visit and discussion with our vet this morning. Despite being an emergency clinic, the Animal Emergency Clinic of the Fraser Valley did not have the means and experts available to them to treat Nala. The Dr whom we spoke with was incredibly honest and compassionate. He advised that we seek an Internal Medicine Specialist and potentially an Oncologist, care which we would be able to receive by immediately heading to Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital as an emergency walk-in. We are extremely grateful to the team at AECFV for their care, compassion and honesty. We have now placed Nala in the knowledgeable and experienced care of BBVSH in hopes that we can get our girl back to health. She is receiving IV fluids, and will be receiving a feeding tube tonight. Tomorrow she will see the Internal Medicine Specialist and they will perform two endoscopies, one orally and the other rectally to hopefully further our understanding of what is going on. We are praying for a miracle and that tomorrow will bring better news.

At such a young age of only three and a half, our girl has lots of life yet to live and so much love still to give. She is fiercely loyal, loving, and protective of her friends and her family.

We will provide updates as we know more.

With all our love and gratitude, thank you for any and all support.