OK so it’s been a while since my first blog!

2 tumours are growing on Pepper’s nerves, they haven’t travelled to her spine luckily but they have grown since the amputation 4 months ago 🙁

She’s also developed Horners Syndrome where her eye droops.

We were offered radiotherapy but decided against this………she’s been through enough and hates being manhandled and pulled around (and sedated!) and it won’t be a cure, so we’ve opted for steroids to help with inflammation and control of tumour and pain relief when it becomes necessary.

And I thought the amputation was the hardest decision to make!!! This is the scariest roller coaster I’ve ever been on!

Christmas was tinged with sadness as we realised it would likely be her last one but she got spoilt rotten…to the point of helping everyone open their presents in case it was for her lol

We noticed she was drinking a lot and consequently getting us up every night, panting more and had become obsessively hungry…..our walks were a nightmare while she went off into the bushes hunting out anything (and I mean anything!!) edible and completely ignoring my calls – she’s always been pretty obedient! Also her fur has stopped growing back 🙁

We were starting to think the tumours were spreading fast and had gone to her brain but then I found the discussion on tripawds about prednisolone side effects and it all kicked into place.

Unfortunately there is nothing we can change to and if we stop them we will have less time with our loveable pooch but now I know there’s a reason for her behaviour it’s become a little easier to cope with….and she’s got a new coat to keep her warm!

So have tucked the tears away for now and will try to ‘be more dog’!!!

Following on from that here are some more pics, past and present

My precious Peppypoo has been a fighter from the start.

We weren’t allowed a rescue dog due to young children, so we found a farm with a stable full of puppies (we suspect from a puppy farm in Ireland), in my eyes we rescued her.

Her first couple of days in our family she spent at the vets where she nearly died from campylobacter….aged just 7 weeks…if we’d left her in that stable she wouldn’t be here now!

Over the years she’s had various cut paws and leg injuries..the vets  became our second home and the insurance company didn’t make a penny lol.

But she was having a ball!! Or rather chasing a ball…..or carrying a stick…..the bigger the better! She love’s a challenge!

At 5 she was run over…………….she does love to chase a cat! Gave the vets a challenge of how to stop the stitches on the inside of her leg pulling apart every time she moved. They ended up stitching the dressing to her!!

After that she became very scared of loud noises…….air brakes on buses, bottle bank, rifle shots even the reversing beep and flashing lights of a lorry would make her tail go down and she’d run in any direction .

She also started getting nervous on long car journeys due to the road noise but the destination (our caravan) was always worth it! Her favourite place is in the New Forest and she immediately knows where we are when we go over the rumble strip…there’s no settling down then!!

At 9 she had a large fatty lump removed from her armpit before it could affect her shoulder joint, she has lots of fatty lumps and has had several needle aspirations but this one was growing steadily.

Feeling sorry for herself!

The last few years have been fairly quiet apart from eating a tray of brownies and getting to know the rabbit!

And then this year…………… a limp that kept coming back…………….her muscle starting to waste away………we tried a few months of hydrotherapy until we were referred to a specialist………an mri followed by amputation the next day due to chronic muscle wastage……she came back a new pooch, tail wagging higher and so much happier, made us realise it must have been getting her down having a useless leg….there is nothing she cannot do…including drinking beer from the can and turning a crisp packet inside out…..her favourite past time!!

But she needed another mri as they didn’t send off a sample of the abnormal nerve……she had that this week……..not the news we wanted…… tumours 🙁