Charlotte, NC - Yorkie, Yorkshire Terrier. Meet Katie a Pet for Adoption

My basic info

Breed

Yorkie, Yorkshire Terrier

Color

Silver & Tan (Yorkie colors)

Age

Senior

Size

Small 25 lbs (11 kg) or less (when grown)

Weight

–

Sex

Female

Pet ID

–

My details

Not good with kids

Not good with dogs

Purebred

Shots current

Spayed / Neutered

Has special needs

My story

Here's what the humans have to say about me:

ADOPTION FEE: $275

2/9/11 – Katie’s medication for her seizures seems to be doing the trick. She hasn’t had a seizure in quite a while.

1/3/12 – Katie is doing OK. She has had some bad seizures over the past several months, but luckily they do not happen very often and she is still on her seizure medication. Her poor back knees are really bad, but there is too high of a risk for surgery especially now that she has been having bad seizures. She is happiest sleeping on the couch away from all other pups and does like some snuggle time with her foster mom.

12/28/10 - Over the past couple of months Katie has begun to have seizures. She has seen her neurologist again and has been started on some medication that will hopefully keep the seizures at bay. We are unsure as to whether the hydrocephalus is causing the seizures or if something else is going on. We will wait a couple of weeks to see if she has anymore seizures before deciding if anything further needs to be done. Other than the seizures, Katie is the same. She still does not like other people or dogs and tends to bark at any little sound. Katie would be happiest in a home where she is the only pup and does not have to share her person with others.

5/21/10 – Katie is recovering well from her surgery on the ulcer. It is taking some time to heal and ended up taking up a large portion of her eye, but she is doing well. She is still on the eye medicine and going in every couple of days to check the progress of her recovery.

4/23/10 –Katie has been doing fairly well lately except for an ulcer that developed just over a week ago in what was her good eye. We took her in immediately and have been putting drops in her eye every couple hours for over a week. Unfortunately this ulcer is very deep and very bad and the medicine is not healing it like it should, therefore she needs surgery to repair the ulcer. Katie will be going in next Thursday to have surgery on her eye.
10/12/09 - Katie is doing pretty good these days! She does so much better with a calm quiet environment. She still has her outburst of unhappiness at times, but does well otherwise. She still doesn't like other dogs or too many people, but hasn't done too bad with the two people fostering her. She does best with one person and no dogs and a very calm and quiet environment.

5/5/09 - Katie is doing well. She is a little stressed out with all the puppies and other dogs around, but does well when the house is quiet and there are only a few older calmer dogs around. We tried some anti-anxiety medicine to see if that would help, but it didn't seem to change anything for her so we stopped. She does best with no other animals around. She really cannot handle noise or commotion at all and will bark if any other dog barks.

8/18/08 - Katie is doing fairly well. We have started her on two weeks of prednisone again. It has been several months since we last had to do this, but Katie has been extremely cranky lately. She has calmed down and is more relaxed now that we put her on prednisone again. Katie does not handle stress, chaos, commotion, or change very well. That is partly due to her hydrocephalus.
8/18/08 - Katie is doing fairly well. We have started her on two weeks of prednisone again. It has been several months since we last had to do this, but Katie has been extremely cranky lately. She has calmed down and is more relaxed now that we put her on prednisone again. Katie does not handle stress, chaos, commotion, or change very well. That is partly due to her hydrocephalus.

4/12/08 - PLEASE NOTE: Katie cannot be in a home with children, other pets or men. She does not like them and with her hydrocephalus she cannot handle the stress.

12/27/07 - Katie is doing really well!! She has had her stitches out from her spay, hernia repair and tumor removal. Everything went extremely well and she has recovered great. She is getting back to herself again! The change in environement has also helped Katie. She isn't quite as cranky all the time like she was when there were more pups and more chaos. She has also started to cuddle a little more than she used to. She still has her moments though where she gets so upset her tongue turns purple while she is growling and barking at you. At these times you cannot even look at Katie without her getting upset. But, those type of episodes have lessened. She still flips herself, licks and bobs her head and likes to smell corners and objects and then gives them a little lick after she smells them for a second and moves onto the next object.

UPDATE 12/17/2007:
12/17/07 - We found out a few weeks ago that Katie had actually not been spayed because she went into heat. She had also recently developed a hernia and it was to the point where you could push the organ back through. A hernia is a protrusion of an organ through an abnormal opening in the body. If hernias at the stage Katie's is at are not fixed, the organ protruding through can get stuck and cut off the blood supply and possibly lead to death.

We were going to avoid anymore surgeries with all she had been through with everything else, but the hernia needed to be fixed to avoid any serious complications. So, last Thursday Katie went in and was spayed, had her hernia repaired, and our vet found another mammary tumor and removed it. In spaying Katie, our vet noticed that Katie must have had several C-sections because there was a lot of scaring on her uterus. This did not make any of us happy, she is so tiny and has so many problems, and whoever bred her, bred all that into her little puppies. Plus, she is too tiny to be having puppies anyway. She did very well with these surgeries. She is on the same pain meds she got with her neck surgery and it has worked real well for her. She has been in some pain with the hernia repair though, but at least the pain meds are helping with that.

ANY HELP WITH KATIE'S MOUNTING VETERINARY BILLS WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

11/26/07 Katie is doing better. She went through a second round of prednisone for her hydrocephalus since sometimes one round isn't enough. The prednisone does help her when she is on it. She recently got done with her second round and she is better than after the first. In talking with the neurologist about this, he said the next step would be to re-evaluate her hydrocephalus to see if it has gotten worse and then if it has, it would be a matter of discussing putting in a shunt. Her foster situation is going to be changing which might help her as well. For pets with hyrdrocephalus, it is important to have them in a calm environment if possible. Too much chaos or excitement can cause them problems and increase the intensity of some of the behaviors associated with hydrocephalus. She will now be in a very calm, quiet and man free environment, which we are hoping will help. Katie does not like men and really does not like other dogs, but the dogs she will be with now are older and very calm. We are going to see how things go after changing her environment and determine what next steps are needed if any. We do not want to put her through more than is absolutely necessary.

10/17/07 - Katie is doing OK these days. She is now a toothless wonder like so many other pups out there, she needed to get the last of those infected teeth out. Since having the rest of her teeth out she has been struggling a bit. We think the anesthesia and other drugs given after her dental were a bit too much for her hydrocephalus this time. She did have issues with the pain medicine and anti-inflamatory this time around and had no problems previously, so those were stopped a few days after coming home from her dental. She was exhibiting more intense behavioral issues after and so we had gone back to Dr. Queck to have the sutures removed that had not fallen out to see if that would help with some of Katie's licking, but it did not help. Sometimes dogs don't like the sutures in their mouth and may do more licking or scratching at the mouth because they don't like them. Katie was just licking a lot and putting her head down and opening her mouth as wide as she could, she never tried scratching at her mouth. We have spoken with Dr. Bergman, the neurologist, and he wanted us to do a bile acid test on her to rule out the liver. Severe liver problems can cause the same kind of behavioral issues Katie is exhibiting such as circling and head pressing and can even cause seizures and coma. Besides the circling and head pressing, Katie has become more unsteady again, had become extremely agitated and will lunge at people or dogs if she is irritated or doesn't want you near her while barking very high pitched, runs around and barks in a high pitch for no reason, cannot settle down very easily, is licking a lot and still putting her head down and opening her mouth as wide as she can. Her bile acid test showed that her levels were normal before she ate and then were doubled two hours after eating. The levels were not severe enough to be causing her behavioral issues. So, we are now trying two weeks of a very low dosage of prednisone to see if that will calm her down a bit. It has definitely made her better, even though she does still have moments where the behaviors are more intense than others. She isn't quite as agitated and angry as she was, she has stopped running around barking for no reason and isn't quite as unsettled as she was before. We think this is an indication that her hydrocephalus was really causing her problems after having her teeth removed, but we will confirm with Dr. Bergman after she is finished with her two weeks of prednisone. At that time we will determine what the next course of action is to give Katie some relief from all her problems. Please keep Katie in your thoughts and prayers.

8/14/2007 - Katie is still doing well. She had her 9 week check up yesterday for her eye and neck. Her eye is doing well. Dr. Eichenbaum did not remove the blood flow attached the graft at this time since her eye had not started growing enough blood vessels on its own yet for the graft. If he were to disconnect it, the graft would die and the blood flow would need to be re-attached. We will check back with Dr. Eichenbaum in two to three months too see where it is at. We have seen improvement from her neck surgery in that she no longer falls over when she looks up at you. That is a sure indication that the vertebrae are no longer pinching her spinal cord and we do not have to worry about it causing her to be paralyzed some day. Dr. Bergman has also started her on a steroid to help reduce the production of the fluid around the brain, meaning this should hopefully help with her others symptoms that could be caused from the hydrocephalus. We are starting her on a very low dosage for two weeks to see how things go and we will move forward from there. A small mammary tumor has appeared since her neck and eye surgery and was found to be non-cancerous. It will be removed when she has the remainder of her teeth extracted on September 4th. In getting to know Katie more each day, it is necessary for Katie to be an only dog and she cannot be around children. Katie does not like other dogs and she gets very protective of the person she likes and will growl and snap at other people and dogs if they get near her. When she gets irritated, it usually takes a while for her to get over it and she ends up growling and snapping even at the person she likes.

6/18/2007 - Katie had both her eye surgery and neck surgery on June 13th. Both surgeries went very well! She had her eye surgery first thing that morning. Dr. Eichenbaum was able to get a good graft from another part of her eye to cover the cornea. She has a red bubble on her eye right now providing blood flow to the area to help it heal. She will have that disconnected 8 weeks after the surgery. Her neck surgery went very well too. She had four tiny pins put in to connect the first and second vertebrae in her neck. She has 6 staples in her neck holding the incision together. The staples will be removed within 10 to 14 days of the surgery. She goes back in 4 weeks to have another x-ray done to make sure everything is holding up well. Dr. Bergman did take x-rays after surgery to make sure the placement went correctly, and they did. She is doing extremely well. She was able to go home the day after her surgery. They can stay anywhere from 1 to 3 days after surgery depending on their level of pain and discomfort. She appears to be walking better after surgery than before, eventhough they can be worse after surgery sometimes and may not walk for a few days. The tech at the hospital had to put her down on the ground to show us how well she was doing when we went to pick her up. They were very happy with her progress. She is such a tough little girl and continues to amaze us all with her tolerance to pain and how well she is healing with all her ailments. She is such a sweet little girl and just wants to live and get on with life. In about 4 months she will go in to have the rest of her teeth removed. Her vet bills to date are $5,883, so any help you can provide for Miss Katie would be greatly appreciated!!

5/31/2007 - Katie had her teeth cleaned last Friday and lost 19 teeth at the time. Dr. Queck could have continued and taken more, but she had already been under anesthesia for 3 hours and her blood pressure was going down, so they had to stop. She only has maybe 9 teeth left in her mouth. She had one tooth that had penetrated her sinus cavity allowing food, air and anything else to get up into there. If not treated, it would have eventually killed Katie from bacteria and such. Because of the severe dental disease, a lot of the bone around her teeth had deteriorated and some of the teeth were only being held in by the calculus build up. After they were able to get the calculus build up off her teeth and were able to examine the teeth better, Dr. Queck determined that Katie was actually around 6 years old and not 12. Dr. Queck made sure to get the worst teeth out and the sinus cavity cleaned up in order for her to be able to have her neck surgery. She will need to go back and have more teeth out a few months after the neck surgery. Then on Monday afternoon an ulcer came to a head in her right eye. We took her to the emergency vet and was put on ointment until we could get to our regular vet. When we went to see our regular vet he was very concerned because it was a very bad ulcer and had us see the opthamalogist. The opthamologist told us that the infection had eaten the tissue away down to the last layer of tissues over the cornea, therefore, if not treated it could rupture and she would run the risk of losing her eye. He is concerned about her eye and wants to do surgery as soon as possible to take tissue from another part of her eye and put it over the cornea in order to cover it back up and keep it from rupturing. With Katie's hydrocephalus and just being under anesthesia, there are some concerns about it. The opthamologist is going to talk to the neurologist to see if we can move up the neck surgery and do them at the same time. Katie has been on antibiotics for nearly 2 months now and has been on strong antibiotics for almost 4 weeks, so maybe that will allow her to go sooner than the 13th of June. Poor Miss Katie has been through so much already. We hope that she will be moving forward in her healing process very soon. Any help you can give for Katie would be greatly appreciated. Her vet bills are already at $2,934 and she has not had her neck or eye surgery yet. Please help us give Katie the life she has always deserved!

5/16/07 - Yesterday Katie went to see Dr. Queck, one of three dental specialists in North Carolina, for a consultation. She was referred to the specialist by our other vet because of the risk involved in doing the dental for Katie. Dr. Queck is going to contact the neurologist to see if there is a neck brace that can be used to keep her neck stable throughout the dental. Dr. Queck also uses a different anesthesia, which is used in children, that will help keep her blood pressure down and reduce that risk due to the hyrdrocephalus and it helps the dogs come out of the anesthesia much quicker and easily. The estimate for her dental was $1,200, which included a full mouth x-ray, two hours of anesthesia since they do not know how long it will take, a full mouth extraction since she likely will not have any teeth left once they are done, and the other usual items such as the IV and medication and cleaning. In looking at Katie and quickly looking at her teeth, Dr. Queck said she could actually be as young as 5 years old given her hair is good, her skin is good and tight with no age spots, her eyes are clear and with her unstable vertibrea and hydrocephalus, it is unlikely she would have even lived to be 12 without any attention to them. She also noticed that the parts of her teeth that she could see looked white, which would indicate she is younger than originally thought. She will not know for sure until she goes in and removes the build from the teeth to get a good look at them, so we may have a young girl on our hands! Age is generally determined in dogs by looking at their teeth, and right now there is no way to even see what Katie's teeth look like from all the build up on them. So please keep Katie in your prayers next Friday when she goes in to have her teeth cleaned. Thank You!!

5/9/2007 - Poor Katie!! Well, we visited the Neurologist yesterday and the news isn't great, but could also be worse. She had a Cat Scan done, a spinal tap, and an x-ray of her neck done. While the Neurologist did not find any tumors or cysts in Katie's brain, he did find that she has a little bit of excess fluid around her brain as well as a soft spot on the top of her head, which is called hydrocephalus. He said he would only put her in the moderate category, so he does not think this is the only thing causing her problems. He decided to take an x-ray of her neck to see if something there was causing any problems as well. He did find that her first and second vertebrae in her neck are not stable, which is causing them to pinch her spinal cord and could be causing a lot of her balance problems. There are a few options, but they do not seem promising based on her age and the length of time she has likely had these issues. If nothing is done, she will likely be paralyzed from the neck down some day. He also wants to wait and see what comes back from the analysis of her spinal fluid, which the results should be in today. As soon as we have all the information, we will discuss next steps for poor Miss Katie. Hopefully once we get this all figured out, she will be able to go in to get those nasty teeth out and to have her poor knees looked at as well. Miss Katie is a mess, but she is the sweetest little girl. Thank you for your continued prayers and support of this precious little girl!

5/4/2007 - OH SO SAD....Katie went for her dental today and unfortunately was unable to have it done, even though her teeth are the worst the vet has seen in her entire career. The vet thinks that Katie may have neurological problems or possibly an infection that has gone to the brain or affected the brain stem. A few of the neurological symptoms Katie is showing is going in circles, falls to the left, crosses her front legs when she walks, chatters her teeth and licks like crazy and then drops to the ground (which could partially be from her infected teeth), along with other behaviors. The vet did not want to do the dental for fear that the anesthesia could possibly kill her if it is something with the brain. We are going to put her on very strong antibiotics for three weeks and hope that makes her better. We will also be taking her to a neurologist to see if we can figure out what is wrong with this adorable little munchkin. She may also have an ulcer on her eye and the vet will be checking that today as well. If you can help this little girl in any way, she would really appreciate it!!

Update 3-13-07: Katie got wonderful news from the vet – no heart murmur!! Her blood work also came back A-OK! We discovered that she has more vision and hearing than previously thought - she even follows me from room to room now! Katie is making up for lost time regarding food – she eats and eats, and has gained some much needed weight. We hope to get her to a good size and then have her dental done next month. She’s a tiny, fragile little girl with lots of spunk! Please donate to help with her medical bills so far.

3/5/07 - Original Bio: Katie was found as a stray and is in bad shape right now. She’s around 12 years old and only weighs 3 pounds. She’s partially blind and deaf, has a heart murmur and her back knees don’t work too well. She has a vet appointment for 3-6-07 so we hope to know more about what we can do for this little girl at that time. Please donate to help pay her medical bills and check back often for updates.