"She won't have much of a life..." I'll never forget those words!

Hi Everyone! I recently posted a blog about veterinarians still making the suggestion of euthanasia. I just wanted to reiterate that, in my experience and in my opinion, as a diabetic dog parent…that is not necessarily the right call. It seems like yesterday…on February 1st, 2012, my little Rat Terrier Ella, who was just 3 ½ years old, was diagnosed with diabetes. I was devastated when I got the news. So many questions raced through my mind but before I could even ask a single question, what he offered was this…my vet told me that most dog owners, when they find out that their pup is diabetic, have it put down and he advised me to do the same. "She won't have much of a life, she's going to go blind, probably lose her tail and a limb." I was dejected when I left the vets office, not sure if I could go through with her daily injections of insulin, monitoring her diet...all of the things a dog owner goes through when they first find out their pup is diabetic and with what he had just told me, I certainly was not about to ask him!

Well, it is 5 years later, and I think and hope that Ella is having a great life. She's traveled with me to 7 different states, she’s romped on the beaches of California, hiked the Rocky Mountains, and visited the Nevada desert. She's run with horses and swam in rivers and lakes. She has been an absolute joy in my life that is for sure!

Hopefully Ella can be an inspiration to others....canine diabetes is NOT a death sentence. Diabetic dogs CAN live normal, healthy happy lives! It's amazing to think that at first I was scared to death to give her a shot twice a day, but here we are, 5 years later, and I've given her 3,650 shots! She's been an amazing dog, and I hope that those owners that have just found out that their pup is diabetic can take some comfort in knowing that there are options now, much more so than just 5 years ago!