Crickette Anne is our October 19, 2014 Pup of the Week

Ask us dogs at the Bridge if any of us shouldn’t be there and every pup’s paw will go in the air.  We know why we are here, that it is for the best, but we still don’t think we should be here.  And then there are the dogs who should have been here long ago, and that brings us to our latest arrival Crickette Anne.

Crickette was an older dog when she came to live with her Mom.  She was living in a public housing unit with her first Mom and another dog, who was the first  Mom’s service animal, and the first Mom’s landlord found out and threatened the woman with eviction.  She needed to find another home for Cricket, and, at the age of ten she became the newest members of the Min Pin Gang. In October 2012 Crickette came home.

Crickette fit right in as soon as she walked in the door.  She slept in her human brother’s bed.  She got sent a gift basket from Hannah Banana’s Mom.  Other DS parents sent money to help get her to the Min Pin Gang.  Everything was going along swimmingly.

Next on the agenda was getting Crickette’s teeth fixed.  But before her operation she developed a bad cough and labored breathing making her Mom concerned about putting her under for the procedure.  The vet checked and did not find anything seriously wrong with her.  Her painful mouth was fixed.

But Crickette’s breathing got worse.  She was diagnosed with a collapsed trachea which is very scary (speaking from experience here) for both dog and Mom.  She could not get air and she had to go on oxygen (speaking from experience that stuff is great, until they take you off of it) and she got some shots.  But Crickette was not happy about being away from her new family and she caused such a fuss they sent her home.

On good days Crickette was breathing with slight difficulty.  On bad days Crickette’s breath was very labored and she was taken to the vet, who kept insuring Crickette’s Mom that the min-pin was getting better by baby steps.

And she did, until she got to a certain point.  The trachea would never completely heal and the little adopted senior would need medicine her whole life.  Some Moms, only having Crickette for a few months, would have given up on this little financial burden but Crickette was now a member of the Min-Pin Gang and was not going anywhere.  Even if, despite her teeth work, still had rather horrid breath.

Crickette settled into living with the Gang, and her breathing became better, but her teeth and breath grew worse, and within a year she needed another operation, which, given her breathing problems, was a very big risk.  She had to have several more teeth out but like the trooper she is she recovered from the surgery.

Two years later Crickette started coughing again but this time the problem was not her trachea.  She had an enlarged heart with fluid around it.  The vet put her on meds to remove the fluid.  Around the time Hurricane Sandy slammed the east coast Crickette’s breathing had deteriorated.  She went back to the vet who determined that her trachea had collapsed again, and may be infected, along with the enlarged heart and fluid in the lungs, her outlook was grim. She was placed on six different medications to aid her breathing.  Slowly the medicine began to help her.   After a month the trachea had improved, and the fluid had gone down, but Crickette would be on medication for the rest  of her life because of her enlarged heart.

In the summer of 2012 Crickette had another health scare as she began to drip urine.  Luckily it was due to the amount of Lasix she was taking, and when cut back on her dosage her urine problem stopped.

Before Christmas Crickette had another bad episode.  She was beyond the time a pup diagnosed with congestive heart failure should have survived and her parents knew that any day could be her last.  But little Crickette kept going.

And then things happened far beyond the control of dogs.  Sometimes our parents drift apart and living together becomes much harder than living alone, and the Min Pin Gang’s Mom decided to move away, taking Crickette and three siblings with her.  But shortly after that decision was made Crickette, who was now at least 15, suffered the effect of vestibular disease.  It is a brain problem that mimics a stroke.  She was put on more medication.

But Crickette had no more fight left in her, and, in one of life’s cruel tricks, as Crickette’s Mom’s life crumbled around her, she had to make the decision to help the dog who she had spent four years working so hard to keep from the Bridge, go there.  On Thursday morning, from her Mom’s loving arms, Crickette arrived at the Bridge.

There were hundreds of dogs waiting to meet her.  She had avoided our fate for so long.  If she hadn’t been evicted from her public housing unit it is doubtful her old Mom could have paid for her medical costs, and if she hadn’t been taken in by Miss Betty it is doubtful another Mom would have spent the time and money taking care of a senior dog who was adopted just to live out her last years in comfort..  

While there were friends and family there to greet her Crickette had one thing on her mind.  Her Mom needed an angel, and we taught her as quickly as possible how to watch over her Mom all the time, and since arriving here she has been, but it has been a rough ride, as her Mom is lost without her baby.  Hopefully knowing the Crickette is now her full time angel will help her broken heart.

Personally, I had my minions do some research for this blog.  The last journal Miss Betty wrote, about Crickette’s going to the Bridge, was the Min Pin’s Gang’s 1,250 journal entry on Doggyspace.  Reading the Gang’s journal was like reading the history of DS with names like Morgan the Miracle Malteses, the first blog posts about Cooper and Willie getting sick.  The entire history of DS is contained there thanks to Crickette and her family, including her meeting Max and Tupper last year. They were the first to pups  meet Crickette when she arrived at the Bridge.

And sadly, they show how we have drifted apart.  Five years ago the Min Pin’s blogs were read by 600-700 members, now it’s down to under 150.  We’ve scattered so much, some to other sites, some to the Bridge.  But we will always be family, we will always be part of a gang.

And thanks to Crickette and her Mom we will always be members of the Min Pin Gang.

For life.

And after that.