Lily will go down in our family history as the one we lost. Lily came to us as a foster after Hurricane Katrina. She had it rough, stuck in her family home during the storm and for a few weeks after, a bloat-torsion episode, bloat-torsion surgery, this girl knew about stress and it showed. She was people aggressive, especially man aggressive, dog aggressive, cat aggressive, food aggressive, plane, helicopter, and tree aggressive. No you read right...plane, helicopters AND trees. Now in her defense she only attacked trees when she heard gunshots.

Think that one over, Cesar Millan. Its a head scratcher!

So like I said, she knew about stress...first hand. She was one big bundle of stress. Plain and simple had she gone anywhere else to foster she probably would have been euthanized simply for public safety. But Lily had something... a quality of attention that made you think you were the only person in the world who mattered. When she was alone with her people she was absolutely the most joyful dog ever. It was like Christmas Morning to her. She danced around and wagged her whole butt just looking at her object of affection. YOU. You just knew it was all worth it to get through the day when she looked at you with those eyes of hers.

Okay, I hear you...how on earth with 2 kids, 5 Great Danes, 3 other dogs, 8 cats and so on did we keep Lily from killing everything? That is a good question. ...Diligence and Luck is all I have got for an answer. We just kept seeking a solution.  When she met the kids we told them to ignore her and she was just fine after a few scary moments. We tried to crate her the first night but it was a disaster, we thought she was going to kill herself trying to get out of that colossal crate. So we took turns sleeping in the car with her the first few nights because we could not figure out how to get her into the house and she loved the car.

We spent our waking hours with her training, playing and loving her and when the other dogs had to come out for a potty break we sat with Lily in the air-conditioned car where she felt safe. While she tried to eat my doggie family through the tinted windows.  Sometimes I cried. Okay I cried alot. Finally on the third day I was so exhausted...exhaustion can be a huge motivator...I tried the colossal crate again. She went so nuts that her feet swelled up double from bashing them against the crate. Her abdomen swelled up double too as if to bloat, she threw up phlem, she burped, the swelling went down. Thank goodness her stomach was empty.  Luckily we had a squeaky toy in the bed, she stepped on it, it squeaked, she grabbed it and squeaked it in her mouth....Salvation!

She settled down to suck on the squeaky baby. She just mouthed it quietly until something moved. Then she went crazy again.

 Still she was crated. If we could keep her in it and keep her from hurting herself we might just lick this aggressive behavior.  And as long as we zip tied the crate all around and had extra clamps for the door and plenty of squeaky toys we knew we had turned a corner...she was inside the house where we could help her.

We tried soothing music, giving her calming herbs, we trained her 4 hours a day. We exposed her to one dog or cat at a time. While she was crated. She wanted to kill them all! But she soon figured out how to be calm in her crate more and more. We trained all our dogs to move to the far side of the room on command so Lily could be moved to the outside. We devised a system of warning to let everyone know Lily was outside so no one let out a dog or cat while Lily was "free".  It did happen of course, my oldest and until that moment my wisest cat, Luna, decided to dart outside when I opened the door to sneak the mail in while Lily was on the other side of the yard. Well Luna made it to the rooftop, I ran interference, but Lily was on her like white on rice, Lily got vertical and nearly plucked Luna off the roof! But not before she made short work of me...running me smooth over. I have been trampled by horses more than once so I thought getting run over by a dog was pretty humiliating, but Luna got away and Lily got to show us how healthy she was becoming. I walked like an old woman for a week and told everyone the rock patio caught me funny. I am just old. Period.

Lily began to enjoy a more normal life, more training, more understanding that her people were not in need of protecting so she did not have to go into Rambo mode every time someone new showed up. We switched her to raw food and she calmed down a little bit more. We gave her massages and she calmed down a little bit more. There were many baby steps like this, it was progress.

Her owner wanted her back, he had surrendered her early on, but changed his mind the next day. We knew he may change his  mind again, but either way Lily needed training no matter what home she might go to in the ent. Her aggressive behavior had to end. So we invested day after day of training, but we also knew a big part of her aggressive behavior was due to her not being spayed. She might calm down even more without all those girlie hormones.

We talked to her owner about this. Would he consent to having her spayed? It turns our he was all for it, but he had so many expenses already. So we promised to get her spayed here and we'd pay.  We felt very strongly that Lily would have a better, calmer, and longer life, spayed.  We had good conversations with her owner over the phone and 8 months after she came he called with the news. He was ready for Lily to come home. He would be here to get her at the end of the week. 

We had planned to get her spayed right away, but she came with canine flu and she was recovering from her bloat surgery at the same time, then she went into season. Hoping to do the spay at the lowest point in her cycle we put her surgery off. So it turned out that her spay was set to go just days before she was to go home. Her owner said he could handle getting the stitches removed and said go ahead.  Just for the record I don't allow injectable cocktail ( more than one med) anesthetics to be used on any of my dogs, its either Propophal and sevoflurane/Isoflurane gas or the dog gets masked down with the Sevo or Iso gas until they can be tubed and then its Sevo or Iso all the way. It makes for a very expensive spay or neuter by its so worth it.  All went well and Lily walked to my suburban and let the vet help lift her in. We were so proud! She laid quietly enjoying the ride home.

 Within 45 minutes of coming home she was dead. She became sluggish, but she was aggitated. We got in the crate with her. Her breath was labored, I called the vet, but before the service could pick up, Lily took a deep breath and let it out with finality. With my husband, Jack holding her tight she did not take another.

We were wrecked.

I don't know how to think of losing Lily without crying. I called her owner and told him. I dreaded the call. I put it off the whole night, and into the next morning. I could not find the words. Finally I knew I could wait no longer, he might start on the road to come for Lily and I must catch him before he did. Somehow I found the words, all I can remember is trying not to cry so hard that I could still be understood.  Losing a dog is horrible, but losing someone else's dog while in your care is a nightmare.  Time does not sooth it. 

We had a necropsy done the next day, and I will tell you all...DO NOT attend a necropsy on a dog you love. You might think you can handle it and you might handle it fine. Take my word for it, You DO NOT want those memories to be the last ones of your sweet baby.  I felt I must attend. Lily was our life's work for the last 8 months, and she was my family's dear, troubled friend. I owed it to myself, my family, Lily and her owner to find out why she died. But I would give back the memories of cutting her open if I could.

In the end my vet and I found out very little, she did have an abdominal bleed, but not from the ovarian stumps as might be suspected, Nothing large and obvious could be found. So we suspect it was a small bleed that grew over time, one that would normally have sealed itself, but didn't. When she lost too many platelets to clot the bleeder it was just a matter of time. Lily was heartworm negative,  Erlickia negative, and her bloodwork previous to surgery was clean. So answers are hard to find.

This webpage is the first time I have publicly spoken of Lily's death. I  worried going public would cause a backlash against spay/neuter.  And it still may, but not to speak of her death means not to be able to speak of her life and she was a dog that taught us so much I must share her story.  I would hope that this story doesn't turn people away from spay and neuter. Please spay/neuter your Great Danes at the appropriate age. 18-24 months. Not as young puppies because Great Danes need their hormones to grow strong and healthy.

 Lily was too old for surgery, I didn't think she was since she had gone through so much surgery just 8 months before and came through it. I felt she was healthier, stronger and better supplemented at the time of her spay than any time in her life. This clouded my judgment as to her age being a threat.

Now 2 years later, I have forgiven myself for taking Lily's age for granted. Someday her owner might forgive me too. That's his journey alone. I like to think two families who loved the same dog have good instincts between them. So good will eventually come from it.

Some ask me if I regret going to Louisiana for Lily, all the work, the tears, worry,  and I don't. Lily was a gift. I do regret the outcome. I love happy endings. But I accept this ending because I have to. Lily taught us about aggressive behavior caused by stress, and how to treat it. Sure we had so much farther to go, but we were getting there. We could never have done it if Lily wasn't willing. She never gave up. She wanted a better outlook on life. We learned what set her off and how to re-train her, but she was the reason she got better.

We enjoyed so many chuckles, and out and out laughter with her silly antics, impromptu dances and she even helped us develop a form of baseball with squeaky toys called Lilyball. Just the way she drank water was a hoot! Our sons, Dillon and Nathan fixed her favorite chicken squeaky to a fishing pole line and cast it out in the yard, she took the bait and ran around trees, the house, like a tricky catfish she broke the line and left the fisherman a wonderin'!! She always had a toy in her mouth, she would put it in the water bowl so it was close by while she drank. The boys always wanted to snatch it from her, but knew better. So the fishing pole trick worked great at moving the toy, just a tiny bit at a time. She'd let us get it about 5 feet away and we thought she had lost interest, but no, she would walk over scoop it gently back up and place it in the water bowl again. Lily was too smart for us. Of course she would look over her shoulder at us as if to say...

"Suckers"

I swear that dane girl could roll her eyes! Oh! and the stink eye! She was a master at looks that could shrivel.

Lily was a kisser, hugger and she would fall over leaning. She even knew how to lean sitting down and fall over doing it too! She loved to sit in deck chairs ( just her back end, of course) She loved a good foot rub and butt scratches were a HUGE treat. She would treat us to a  dance afterwards she was so happy. She loved toys, and made her own fun tossing golf balls in the air and catching them over and over. I have a video of her doing it until she see the camera and does the stink eye and then just walks off. Priceless. She had perfect comic timing.

In short, Lily was worth every single tear. She gave better than she got.

There is no higher praise. 

Thank you, Lily.