The following was originally posted on 28 February, 2008, in my old blog:

The first thing I saw this morning when I opened my eyes was the youngest of our three dogs, Pinkie, staggering around the house, barely able to walk, let alone stand. She was clearly in distress; she wanted to go outside to do her business but could barely manage. I panicked of course — my first thought was that she’d had a stroke and that we were going to have to euthanize her. She’s 12 – 1/2 years old, but all of our dogs are in surprisingly good health for their ages, and the thought of losing even one of them . . . well, we don’t have kids, but our dogs are a major part of our family and always have been.

I phoned the vet and made an appointment for her, then I got her to lie down and rest until it was time to leave. In the meantime I had read on the internet something that reassured me — it said that even when a dog does have a stroke, they can usually recover and deal with it better than we humans can. So, okay, not necessarily a death sentence, I can deal with this. Of course I was also doing some praying.

By the time we got to the vet (which is only about five blocks from our house) Pinkie was walking perfectly normally! She was excited about getting to GO, didn’t matter where. The vet looked her over and didn’t see any serious signs. Cookie appetite fully intact, and Pinkie was acting as if nothing had even happened.

So maybe it was a TIA, who knows. Without doing a CT scan or an MRI — talking mega bucks here — it’s kind of hard to say. We discussed it and decided to wait on doing any blood work, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on her, and if it happens again the tests will be unavoidable.

We love our dogs so much, it can be a hard call sometimes on whether to spend a ton of money (which you may or may not have available). We’ve done the diagnostic route in the past on Gabby, Pinkie’s mom, and in that case it didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. I think it’s really important not to rush the decision. Of course you want what’s best for them, but if you’re going on adrenaline and fear, you might make a choice that later on seems foolish.
Thankfully, for the moment Pinkie’s doing fine. I know the day is coming when that won’t be the case; so the important thing now is to give our pets as much time and love as we possibly can. That means more to them than anything money can buy.