Starter is a Sammy.A breed of his own.
A specimen of super health.A smile on his face but....pedigrees can't eat table food, we learned the hard way.
Began drinking too much water told his story.Share this sad tale of woe, if you please.

  

We All Make Mistakes But....Not With My Best Friend

   We call him Starter Beal 'cause he is a member of our family.I say he is a Sammy since I am not sure how to spell Samoyed.We were told he smiled when he is happy and my reply at the time was, "Sure." Then I was the one with the smile on my face.Might have been a smirk, but soon I began to see Starter with a smile on his beautiful face.

   What was sad at our beginning life with him was; when we had Starter given to us he was two years old. His owner was running for a political office and we found out she kept him in a crate about two feet square.He even slept in it at the foot of her bed.She said she didn't have time for him.She paid a thousand bucks for this mighty specimen whose breed came from Siberia.

   At times when we first got Starter he figured out how to unlock the gate on the patio and escape to chase every squirrel and cat in the neighborhood, then return with that smile we were told about.He always acted like he did nothing wrong.

   He became our best friend, loved to travel in the bass boat while we fished and hated the water if he fell in.He loved French fries, steak, ice cream for his birthday and everything sweet.

   That was the mistake of his life for us to commit.He turned ten and our kennels picked up on his drinking too much water.

   Our fault, we had a peekapoo that ate anything and lived to be sixteen.So since we had not been warned about his diet we assumed everything was lovely.

   The Vet said he was diabetic and would give him a shot of insulin twice a day 'til we got used to it.Soon Starter began to break out on his back showing he was allergic to it.The Vet said he too was diabetic and not to worry about the rash.I let him know that if he had a prescription filled by me I certainly would tell his doctor he needed to make a change since he was highly allergic to it.He still said it was fine.In two weeks Starter became blind because of a horrible misake.He had formed cataracts in two weeks to cause him to be totally blind.Was that not a stupid blunder!

   What was funny was I was told to get a sample of Starter's urine every morning.So I took a cup every where he went to jump on the ground, crawl on my knees and catch a specimen the neighbors thought I had lost my marbles.I began to think the same.

   When staff broke out on his back we looked for another Vet.Fortunately, Robin our kennels owner told us about the best around.When he called the UGA Vet head doctor he said,"Take that dog off the insulin and put him on another right this minute.That is a big mistake."

   For nine months Starter was blind.He learned how to navigate by feel and had accepted it.But by damn, we sure as hell did not.

We finally located an Opthalmologist who performed surgery on one eye and today, Starter takes two shots and eats diet food only.This morning had a good frost and he ran around like he was a puppy.

                                                                                                We now live in the mountains where he loves cold weather and the smile is back, also on his mama and daddy.

Thank God for the smart Vet and the wonderful surgeon.                                                       Everett Beal Rph