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Freedom From Illness—Optimum Choices
18 years/3 months left (8/2014): Mikki was started on another course of antibiotics for the spotting. When one does not help, another is added, but it did not help any either. Also, her digestion was upset by the antibiotics, causing loose stools. We increased the probiotics to the maximum amount (4 scoops/day) and her digestion slowly improved after the antibiotics were completed. The vet wanted to do an ultrasound of the kidneys to diagnose the spotting but Mikki is too sick now to tolerate treatment for either a kidney infection or bladder blockage, so it does not make sense to spend more money on diagnostics. Mikki started having heavy panting fits. The vet cannot determine any possible cause for this other than pain. Squirting her with homeopathic remedies and giving her Reiki treatments help calm her down and reduce the symptoms. Mikki is vomiting more now. 18 years/2 months left (9/2014): Mikki had a shaking fit one night. She would shake every 3-4 seconds and her eyes looked like they were in pain. Russell squirted her with the Zeel/Traumeel homeopathic remedy and did Reiki on her for 15 minutes. She finally calmed down (although did not completely stop shaking) and closed her eyes to go to sleep.
Mikki has started waking us up at night with barking when she is in distress. One night, she was still under the covers on her chair but her diaper was wet and full of poop. Another night, in her wandering downstairs, she went into the office and got her rear legs tangled up between the cord of Russell’s telephone headset on the floor and the office chair. She could not move. Russell untangled her and took her out to pee and then she was fine. Another night, she wandered into the bathroom but when she tried to exit she got behind the bathroom door and the wall. She was literally stuck in the corner because she did not know how to back up. Then on another night, her diaper came off and got caught on the TV table and she could not move. 18 years/0 months left (11/2014): In mid-November, Margaret took Mikki in the car to the park, a 5 minute drive. Mikki used to love car trips and going to the park, but now Mikki is just shaking and miserable in the car and does not enjoy the park either. She does not like walks at all anymore, whether in the stroller or just walking directly from home. This is a big change from the summer, just a few months ago, when she still enjoyed these outings. The weekend before Thanksgiving, Mikki started refusing all food, even canned cat food and steak. A couple of weeks earlier, she was still gobbling up these foods. Margaret tried all her favorite foods but she was refusing everything, no matter how tasty. Margaret tried squirting her with BioPreparation in water but she just vomited that up. Mikki suddenly became extremely thirsty, going to her water bowl and lapping up a huge amount of water, but then she immediately vomited all the water and collapsed on the floor, unable to get up. This happened several times over the weekend. Also, she started having diarrhea in her diaper, which distressed Mikki. We looked at the long list of declining old age symptoms in the last few months:
We concluded
that Mikki’s quality of life was no longer good. We could see pain in
her eyes. She no longer enjoys walks or people food. We consulted with
vets who specialize in
in-home euthanasia and one of them explained that kidney disease
is a long, painful death, unlike some other diseases where the animal
can be comfortable dying naturally. Even once the animal stops eating,
as happened with Mikki, the dying can be painful and prolonged. The vet
explained that kidney failure is like having a very bad case of flu,
that the animals feel horrible, plus the toxicity affects their mind and
causes the symptoms of senility that we have witnessed. Therefore, we
made the difficult decision to do
in-home euthanasia and escort Mikki over the Rainbow Bridge just
before Thanksgiving in November, 2014.
This article is dedicated to pet dental health month, which is February every year. It is likely that our dog, Mikki, developed kidney disease due to her poor dental health that resulted in the loss of over half her teeth. Unfortunately, about 80% of dogs have periodontal disease by the age of 3. Toy breeds like Mikki are especially prone to poor dental health due to the small size of their mouth. Despite quarterly anesthesia-free teeth cleaning and a raw diet, Mikki had over half her teeth extracted due to disease. A few years ago, she quit breathing under anesthesia during a dental procedure so we were unable to remove any further diseased teeth after that. She did not tolerate home dental care (teeth brushing), but if your dog does, we highly encourage you to brush your dog’s teeth daily, in addition to feeding bones for them to chew on to clean their teeth. For a list of graduates from the Well Animal Institute, LLC, who have completed their anesthesia-free dental cleaning course for pets, click the logo or text links below:
Graduate Students in anesthesia-free teeth cleaning
For those of you pet parents that want to memorialize your beloved pet, we can recommend purchasing an urn from Best Friend Services (bestfriendservices.com). They offer a full range of breeds with their figurine urns, and provide excellent customer service, just as we strive to do at Optimum Choices. See below for the figurine urn we purchased:
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General Information:
info@OptimumChoices.com Location (available by appointment ONLY)416 Plateau Pkwy
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stopped
wanting to eat her meals. In the past she had been a “food monster”,
gobbling up her meals in less than a minute. Blood tests showed high
kidney values, indicating the onset of
Renafood, Amino B’s (liquid amino acids & vitamin B supplement),
Myristin (for arthritis), 
to
hold it 8-10 hours at night and at least 6-8 hours during the day when
needed. Now she can only last 3-4 hours before she needs to potty. If we
are not home she will go inside now. Mikki hates to go outside when it
is cold to go potty. We set up a potty pad (synthetic grass) inside to
encourage Mikki to pee when needed inside. It took us a while to train
her but it sometimes works. 
18
years old/7 months left (4/2014): We substituted disposable training
pads (for puppies) on the floor for the potty pad because they are
easier to clean up and Mikki is now missing the potty pad. Mikki needs
to be walked every 2-4 hours now. 
Incontinent
to the point of needing a diaper.
