MEET CORRIE 6 May 1994 - 2 November 2005
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Corrie or Shady Queen was a few months old when we got her from Scotland. She was bought to be my show dog. She had all the perfect characteristics of a show dog, one of her parents was a Champion of the breed. |
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If you read the rest of this story you will see why breeding even "good" pairs can go wrong. She was a gorgeous little dog, all the hallmarks of a puppy that would grow up to be a fine looking adult. |
| In November 1994 when she was exactly six months old I entered her in her first dog show. She was brilliant, went round the ring as if it was hers, judge was very impressed with her, even though her ears had not "gone up" yet. |
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Corrie got second place in the puppy bitch class. I was really pleased with her. It was over the next few months that she started to have tummy trouble, diarrhoea mostly. She wasn't putting on any weight and didn't seem to be filling out properly. |
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We took her to the vets, blood tests were done. Went back for the results to find that she had a pancreas disorder, exocrine pancreatic deficiency. She couldn't digest her food properly, she wasn't getting the nourishment needed to grow properly. |
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So from the age of nine months she was given pancrex enzyme powder, first in capsules that were taken 20 mins before food, then in tablet form, then a powder that was sprinkled on her food. The other thing was that we were to feed her on fish, chicken, rice, pasta. |
Thing was Corrie did not like fish and would not eat it, just as well Roxy loved the stuff. Rice, well I have never seen a dog make such a mess whilst eating rice, it would be all over the place, including in her ears! She seemed to like chicken, so chicken and turkey it was, every day of her life, with her pancrex powder too. She still never matured physically or mentally, but at least the diarrhoea stopped, and she put on some weight. Show career over I decided to take her to Bloxwich Dog Training Club. She passed beginners in April 1995 and went into Intermediate class. The first week of training the trainer took Corrie to show people how to improve their heelwork. Corrie was not impressed, after that whenever that particular trainer came by her she would back away or try to nip her. Unfortunately Corrie never got the point of dog training, she thought I was trained enough, and she was getting that she did not enjoy training, so with Tess and Roxy in Intermediate and Advanced I stopped taking Corrie.
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Going......
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Going.... |
Gone. |
As you can see from the shots on the left, sit stay was one of the things that Corrie never quite got the hang of. |
| Then there was the incident at the caravan, she was about twelve months old. She was sat by the draws. Somehow her collar got wrapped around the handle of one of the draws. Then she decided to get up and move. |
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As she got up, the draw "followed" her. Corrie saw something following her and panicked, she fled down the middle of the caravan with the draw attached to her collar. Now a caravan inside is quite small, she clattered the draw down behind her. |
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Not to mention around mine and my husbands legs. The look on her face was sheer panic, "it's still following me!". Just as she got to the door hubby grabbed her and released the draw. Contents of the draw all over the caravan, bruises on our legs, the neighbours wondering what was going on, a panic stricken, but otherwise uninjured, Corrie. We were laughing so much we forgot about our bruises! Around this time Bobby joined our family. (See Bobbys story)
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Then at the caravan the dogs like to go swimming, except Corrie. In the summer we would walk along in the river with them, Corrie was on the bank whining and crying, but would not go in the water. A dog that didn't like swimming, great!! So I put her on a lead and escorted her into the water, at first she was scarred, and tried to climb up me, but I took her collar and she started to swim, next thing is we can't get her out of the water! She loved it! As soon as she realised she didn't sink! |
| Then there was walking in the woods across from the caravan site, we got to a viewing platform, where we stood and looked at the river and the dogs were under the platform as it was on stilts, built out from the side of the banking. |
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The others went round the side down the bank, not Corrie she decided to jump down from the front of the platform, a height of around 8 feet. She landed in a heap, but otherwise uninjured. On the right one of the few pictures with both ears up! |
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Then in the Summer of 1998 the clan was joined by Merlin. (see Merlin's story) Corrie didn't take much notice of the new arrival at all. Merlin was just a few months old when we lost Roxy.
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So soon after we acquired Crystal. Crystal joined us in November. (See Crystal's story) That did interest Corrie. She started to treat Crystal like her puppy. Just like Roxy had done to her. |
| You could say that Corrie was a little accident prone, and maybe a little "silly" in the choices she made of how to do things. When she reached the age of five we had to take her to the vets with a scabby nose. Something called Lupus. She was five in 1999. |
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The vet said he had not seen this complaint in an adult dog before it usually only happened in puppies, gave her some tablets, We took her back to the vets because there was something wrong with her eyes. Conjunctivitis said the vet, come back next week. |
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| I will try and keep this short, I took her to work with me on the day she had to go to the vets. The vet was not far from work. He looked at her eyes and said I think we need to refer her to a specialist. When will that be? said I. Well now if you can. Right he phoned the specialist made an appointment for 1.00 pm, it was already 12 noon. They faxed directions, I hadn't got my purse, so trip back to work, asked if it was ok to go "Of course" said my boss. Off we went to Solihull. I'm not too good at finding new places so we were a little late. Got there went in, we were in the examination room for almost an hour. He was using a special camera to take pictures of Corrie's eyes, asking all sorts of questions etc. We left the room with him saying bring her back next week, and there may be a difficult decision to make. Corrie's own immune system was attacking her eyes, causing severe infection, retinal detachment, and bleeding in both eyes, with the infection spreading down her optic nerve to her brain. £229.81 lighter we made our way home, specialist consultation fee was £110 + VA T. |
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| Drug regime, we did an excel spreadsheet, and ticked them off as we gave them to her. She had one tablet once a day, 6 tablets twice a day, one eye drop six times a day and another every two hours! We only lost Roxy a few months earlier, and I was not going to lose Corrie. Return to the specialist a week later. "What have you been doing?" he asked. All that you told me to do, tablets and drops as instructed, including through the night. |
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Her improvement was fantastic, the vet said bleeding had stopped, retinas reattached and infection under control, thanks to putting the drops in her eyes every two hours including nightimes. Visits to the specialist continued at regular intervals, Corrie's weight ballooned to 40kg+ (see picture to the left) because the drugs were steroids. She settled, the dosages of drugs were cut, and she was doing great. This took about 12 months. |
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Unfortunately she became "used" to the drugs that were controlling the infection and eventually she had to have her left eye removed because of pressure build up. Didn't bother her, she couldn't see too well anyway. |
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Walkies continued, although on occasion we had to carry a 40kg Corrie's cause she'd run round too much! As the drugs went down so did her weight. Then one day I noticed some blood by her private bits. |
| Rushed her to the vet, a cyst had burst, Corrie had a collection of cysts and now this one had burst the vet thought it time to remove them. This was not long after losing her first eye. Four cysts were removed, one was very large. She recovered excellently. |
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Unfortunately she had to have the other eye removed a year or so later, which meant she was now blind. At least we could stop the drugs. She adapted really well, she enjoyed the rest of her life, the remaining 4 years even thought she was blind. She still loved walks and her chicken for dinner. |
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Unfortunately on one walk, she lost her bearings and started running out to sea (tide was out). Luckily we sent Crystal into the water after her and she brought Corrie back! Wonderful! |
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Gizmo (see Gizmos story) arrived in 2005. Corrie being old and blind took absolutely no notice of Gizmo. Corrie was doing fine. She had antibiotics on and off for urinary infections, but she was eating, and going for walkies and quite happy. |
One thing I haven't yet mentioned is teaching Corrie "Shake a paw", we tried and failed for years to teach this trick. Then we discovered she had a taste for after eight mints! (I strongly recommend that you do not give your dog human chocolate) Corrie had been through so much we just gave her it for treats. Shake a paw was taught within half a dozen after eight mints when she was about 3 years of age. Trouble was that if you had after eight mints you ended up with a Corrie sat in front of you, bopping you with her paw! This continued all through her life, even when she lost her sight, she heard the rustle of after eight paper (no other paper rustle got the same effect, or any other after dinner mint either!) and followed her nose, up came the paw and she got a piece of mint.
Unfortunately for Corrie she has been the dog with most health problems, but she also lived for 11½ years, our longest surviving German Shepherd. The vet (who we now know by first name basis) told us often that with someone else she may not have survived so long.
We took her to the vets because she had stopped eating, the previous night when was unable to settle. The vet found a large tumour, either attached to her liver or her spleen, they may be able to remove it, but its a big operation and Corrie was old. We discussed it and decided enough was enough. She was put to sleep on 2nd November 2005, my darling Shady Queen had had a tough life health wise, but a very happy existence. She was cremated and we got her ashes back a week or so later, again a brass plaque with CORRIE, Shady Queen, 6 May 1994 - 2 November 2005 was placed on the sideboard with Tessa and Roxy, playing together again.
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| If I knew what was going to happen in Corrie's life would I have still had her? Definitely YES, she taught me so much about coping with illness I am extremely proud that we had her, and hope she was as happy with us! |
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