Heidi is our female Dalmatian, a great companion for our male, Domino (who will be the subject of an upcoming PEWP feature).  This is the story of how she came into our lives.

It was July 1998 and time to find Domino a friend.  We always had plans to do this and now seemed like an opportune time.  With Sara back in the work force, Domino was of necessity going to be spending more time by himself.  Sara began scouring the newspapers and web sites for a suitable partner.

The Seattle Times classified ads contained a listing for a female Dalmatian living in Bellevue.  We followed up on this and learned about Heidi for the first time.  She was about six years old and had a partner of her own at the time, Hank, a deaf male.  As it turned out, the owner's family situation was changing.  One of the two dogs had to go and it was going to be Heidi.  Following a few exchanges of information, we decided that we wanted Heidi to come live with us.

Heidi was air freighted up to Anchorage on the evening of my 5-Miler for Men's Cancer Research, July 18, 1998.  After playing race director for the day, I was beat.  It was left to Sara to go out to the airport at 0-dark-thirty and retrieve Heidi.

When Sara opened up the sky kennel, Heidi waddled out.  At first glance it became obvious that Heidi had a bit of a weight problem.  She was two-thirds Domino's size but weighed as much if not more.  When Sara took her to the vet, she tipped the scales at 87 pounds.  "Living large" is a phrase that applied to this animal!

We also noticed that Heidi had a bit of a limp in one of her rear legs.  The vet said that Heidi's anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) was buckling under the load of her corpus.  It became incumbent upon us to try to get some of the excess weight off her.

But instead of getting lighter, Heidi gained weight in her first few months with us.  Before we knew it she was up to 120 pounds, and the situation took a distinctly more alarming course when Heidi's ACL ruptured in January of 1999.  Now she really was in trouble, having to maneuver her substantial girth around on three legs.  An operation was indicated to repair Heidi's ligament but the vet wouldn't do it until we got at least some of the weight off.  After a week of very stringent dietary controls, Heidi had dropped ten pounds and the vet said it was OK to operate.

It wasn't all sweetness and light (pardon the pun) as the vet was afraid that Heidi may not come out of the anesthesia.  It was a very scary day when we took Heidi to the vet's office for her operation - we were afraid we would not see her again.

Thankfully, Heidi survived her operation.  But even though she came through it OK, the vet was still on us to reduce Heidi's weight.  During the surgery, the vet pulled some blood to check Heidi's thyroid function.  One of the theories regarding Heidi's weight problem was that she was hypothyroid.  The blood samples revealed that Heidi's thyroid function was within normal tolerances.  So we tried more exercise, low-cal food, lots of water - anything to get the weight off.  Nothing seemed to work, in fact, Heidi's weight crept back up to near 120 pounds in spite of our efforts.

The vet finally said that we should try putting Heidi on thyroid medication.  We'd tried everything else and weren't successful, so why not give the pills a 4-week test and see what happened?

To our amazement, and the vet's, Heidi dropped almost twenty pounds that one month on thyroid pills!  At the time of this writing, she is back under 100 pounds and descending.  A recent blood sample shows no change in her thyroid function, so the medication hasn't hurt her any.  This was the ticket to getting Heidi to lose some weight, and we are thankful that something has finally worked!  She truly is the WONDER DOG.

Heidi gets two and a half cups of the Eukanuba prescription-only, restricted-calorie dog food each day along with her Rimadyl and soloxine.  Plus some baby carrots as a treat.  We float her dog food in two cups of water each time she is fed, this makes her feel fuller and maybe leads her to believe that she is getting more food.  She slurps it all up with great gusto.  I believe she is a happier dog now.  She can get around a lot better with the weight off.  This also makes it easier for Heidi to reprise her "Dancing Hippo" role as she can jump higher and reach unattended food items on the kitchen counter.  We have to watch her like a hawk!  Why, just yesterday she snagged two cinnamon-raisin bagels while no one was looking.....

Heidi has lived up to her billing as a wonderful pet and good companion to Domino.  She used to herd Hank around, inasmuch as Hank couldn't hear anything.  Upon request she will do the same to Domino.  She loves her walks, especially when the four of us go out together.  It's so much easier for her to get around now and she doesn't limp at all.  Last January's operation made all the difference in the world.  We expect our Heidi-Girl to be with us for a long, long time!!