Hi guys, welcome back. This is kind of a random video, but I promised I'd make it. So here it is. This is the story of me
adopting a senior dog, Alaska.
So the intro to this story is kind of long and I don't know how to make it brief, but anyway.
Alaska is my first dog so not gonna lie - I was a bit scared to commit, because I knew
she's a senior dog and I have had no experience before I got her.
But the truth is that the moment you set your foot in an animal shelter - none of that matters.
At all.
So one day - after contemplating it for months, literally, - I just get up and get in the car.
When I arrive there, I walk around, looking at the cages, packed with dogs that all wanted
my attention, obviously. And I just walk around, walk around... And suddenly - our eyes meet.
I see this incredibly thin, weak and apathetic dog with barely any teeth.
She is so absent it almost feels like she's a ghost.
Just a shadow of her former self.
While all the other dogs jump all over the cage and bark violently, she stays still and
with her lost yet gentle, heart-breaking gaze, she silently begs me to get her out of there.
And I'm pretty sure you know how this part of the story ends.
I take her home, but later that evening, it turns out that her mental condition is way
worse that I anticipated.
She's scared to walk out the door, easily startled and afraid of people, not to mention
the ridiculous amount of fleas and dirt she's covered in.
And at that moment - I panic.
Not gonna lie, first few hours were not easy.
There's a difference between adopting a well mannered, normally behaving senior dog and
one that has no clue what it means to be a part of the human world.
Around the time of the adoption, I was trying to put my life back together after a very
difficult period yet here I was.
Now having to take care of a dog that required more that I thought I had to give.
Fortunately, that night a friend of mine comes over to help me out and offer some words of
comfort.
Later, I decide to give Alaska a nice bath.
She is so tired she literally falls asleep in the tub.
Looking at her, right then and there I know there's no turning back and however difficult
things might be, I'm not taking her back to the shelter.
First few days test us both.
She's depressed, not vey responsive, sleeps all day.
Doesn't act like a dog at all.
But slowly, day by day, with a pinch of patience, she starts to open up...
Until an unexpected event shakes our world to the core just two weeks later.
One early morning I am woken up by a loud, continuous banging noise, so I run to the
other room to discover Alaska on the floor, paralyzed and covered in her own faeces, foam
dripping from her mouth.
Just an incredibly terrifying sight.
Not knowing what to do, I just stand there, thinking that it's over.
But suddenly, she comes around so we go straight to the vet.
Diagnosis is quick: EPILEPSY.
Not a mild case either.
As it quickly turns out, the seizures come in clusters up to 7-8 per day, each lasting
more than 5 minutes.
So I decide to take her to another clininc that specializes in neurological disorders.
It's 2 am and one of the vets says that it's probably a brain tumour and since Alaska's
very old, there's no point in doing any other tests, especially not MRI scans because they're
going to cost a fortune and they won't help anyway.
When he hints I should consider putting her down, I refuse to listen.
And we leave Alaska at the clinic, under observation for now.
I head back to the car and completely break down.
What am I supposed to do?
I didn't adopt a dog just to put it down two weeks later without knowing whether there's
anything else that could be done for her.
On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure if I have it in me to continue.
But I finally get my shit together and make a final decision.
We will fight.
So we put her in an induced coma for a few days until the epilepsy meds start to work.
Otherwise - the frequency and strength of the seizures will be life threatening.
We take an MRI scan.
Multiple blood tests.
For days on end, I stay by her side, not sleeping while she drunkenly paces around the flat,
whining for hours.
Finally, we manage to calm the attacks down, although they still haunt us every month.
And let me tell you - they aren't pretty.
Pee and poo everywhere, no sleep cause of the pacing and whining.
She's exhausted, I'm exhausted.
Not looking great.
She's still severely underweight but when I take her back home from one of the many
vet visits and she pulls on the leash, displaying an incredible will to live, I know it's not
time to give up.
Not yet.
So we start from scratch.
I slowly help her gain weight.
We get rid of any deficiencies she had.
We get rid of ringworms and gastric issues.
We run an MRI scan along the way and it turns out she does have a small change in her brain
that could potentially be a tumour and if it is, she'll get significantly worse within
the next few weeks.
I decide to carry on, because we did not get this far to give up now.
Everyday, I slowly work with her to open her up to the things she's been missing out on
and I show her that there's more to life than being locked away in a tiny, dark shed.
The process requires patience so one day, when she finally happily runs by my side,
I cry as tough I just saw my own baby taking its first steps.
I know, a little bit cheesy but what can you do.
She's such a brave dog.
I must've taken her to the vet at least 40 times in just two or three months.
And all that effort eventually pays off when she finally gets as close as she can ever
be to being a normal dog.
And it feels so nice to see her enjoy the simple pleasures after more than 10 years
of being miserable.
What this story has taught me is that our limits stretch far further than we think they do.
Yeah, cliche, cheesy, cringy. Whatever.
If you told me last year I'd be a part of this story, I wouldn't believe you.
These things only happen on the internet.
I never thought I had it in me.
I never considered myselft to be particularly selfish, but selflessly putting another living
being first is something else and I just didn't think I could do that as someone who's scared
of commitment.
To be completely honest - if I knew Alaska suffered from epilepsy before I adopted her
- I'm not sure if I'd do that, just because she was my first dog and it would've been
irresponsible.
But now I know that none of that matters.
You can't decide what life throws at you, but you can decide how to respond to it.
You can take the dog back to the shelter or decide to immediately put it down or you can
test your limits.
This was by far the most difficult thing I've ever done, but nothing else could've taught
me so many valuable lessons.
Nobody wants to adopt senior dogs, so they just stay in shelters forever, their light
slowly fading each day.
People predicted the worst and tried to convince me there's no point in trying because Alaska
won't be around in a few weeks anyway.
Yet - against all odds - here we are.
Almost a year later, still haning around.
Some days are better than others.
She still sruggles with cognitive issues and her epilepsy meds are so heavy that they aren't
really helping.
But the adoption gave her an opportunity to experience what freedom and true happiness
is like for the first time ever.
So even if she doesn't have that much longer left now, it was all worth it, for the brief
moments of sweetness she still brings to the world every now and then.
I know adopting a senior dog might seem scary, but please remember Alaska was a special case.
Most of them are perfectly fine.
They are the ones that need us the most yet we treat them as though they are invisible.
The love you're given in return is priceless and can never be duplicated.
Very few things in life feel as good as the warmth of a senior dog's gratitude.