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Mothy

23rd November 1989 - 20th January 2002

Italian Spinone

This is mainly about Mothydog, her real house name is Mothy and her pedigree name is Tribart Theoglio. She was 12 years old. She was born 3rd November 1988 and died 19th January 2002.

In this picture she had been recently stripped and had been on a diet and which reduced her weight from nearly 40kg to about 32kg.

As a puppy Mothy was trained by Diggie - a GSD/Bearded Collie. With maybe some help from Niki.

Diggie also taught her to be social with other dwellers in the house, namely cats.

She was a wonderful dog, very loving, protective and loyal. Fearless but cautious of strangers until properly introduced. The one downside was that she was 14 months old before she was fully house trained, this may be due to her being an older puppy (14 months) before she left kennel life to come and live with us.

She had not been used or trained in the field, but had always shown a propensity for naturally pointing, flushing and if necessary even going and catching game. She had a love affair with birds - they fascinated her.

Although she was spayed she gave a certain amount of interest to Ghillie our Bearded Collie...

Here she is before stripping and somewhat heavier and feeling rather sorry for herself.

Mothy was a reasonably clean dog, but it does help somewhat if one has Mothydog coloured carpets throughout

Towards the end Mothy was not very active and spent most of the days contemplating….

She could still look good after the groomers

And like most Spinone, is horrible under the chin. May have something to do with why they change their drinking water into some ghastly glycerine substance. Ghillie wouldn't touch any water that Mothy had been drinking, and I don’t blame him.

And if you are interested here is Mothy's pedigree if she had a claim to fame, it is in Carolyn Fry's book on the Italian Spinone, where three of Mothy's grandparents have good mentions as important imports into the UK ( Febo 3, Gek and Dira)

There were a number of health problems during her life. In the early days she would suddenly collapse and also had phantom pregnancies. Both of these issues were cured by having her spayed. It turned out that both her ovaries had cysts the size of walnuts.

She developed arthritis following a hip dislocation caused by falling out of bed in her enthusiasm to see off who ever was knocking on the front door. When we decided to have her X-rayed to see what the damage was, we discovered that she wan well enough to be anaesthetised because of a  heart problem - the secondary heart beat is very weak. 

After some treatment she had her X-rays and they showed no sign whatsoever of hip dysplasia. Green Denes tablets helped the arthritis, plus a soluble aspirin. But then her condition deteriorated, so a visit to the pain control clinic that the local vets run, advised that putting her on to Aloe Vera (99% strength) may help. She was on this treatment for 3 years and it did show a marked improvement. She was more mobile (but still couldn't walk further than a mile) and regained her sense of humour and devilment. 

In the last 6 moths of her life she contracted lipfold dermatitis, the smell was awful just like a decaying mouse. Antibios cleared that up quite quickly, but regular inspection and sniffing of her jowls was called for. 

Then there were more problems with her lower lip, large swellings. 

The growth grew rapidly over the next week so the decision was made to remove it. It was very hard in substance. As I felt that it made no difference to me or Mothy to have it analysed, that was not done. The logic was that if she had something radically wrong then more symptoms will appear. And what would I have done with the info it did show a cancer? Mothy was an excellent patient and did not bother with her stitches in her mouth.

Then a lump appeared in her neck, about the size of a small hens egg. That was reduced considerably using steroids. The probability was that the growths were cancerous. The side benefit of that treatment was that Mothy was now a lot more mobile - in fact positively skipping about! 

The swellings continued, about 4 or 5 which could each grow to the size of a billiard ball. Increasing the steroids would bring them back down again so there is handful of these leathery lumps which appear to be attached to the lymphatic glands. But then the swellings just became bigger and bigger.

Despite all this and wondering how long she would have a quality of life for, she seemed to be like a cat with nine lives. Two weeks before she died, Ghillie knocked a cake tin down on the floor which contained an 8" diameter very rich Christmas cake. Mothy in our absence ate the lot including tinfoil and plastic decorations. The next day saw her at the vets in intensive care, drips attached to her being pumped full of all sorts of injections. She was in severe shock/trauma, presumably because of the sugar overdose. Having nearly faded away she rallied back and was back home the same evening without further ill effects. Though maybe a sore head and stomach the next day.

Finally she was unable to take interest in life around her, had difficulty eating, and was very shaky on her back legs. Her time of quality of life had come to an end.