Illusions Scrapbook

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This is our friend Hugo. He was one of our clients at the grooming salon. His parents were unable to care for him any more so we agreed to take him in.We found a great home for Hugo in PA. They love food just as much as us and as you can see from these pictures that is exactly what this American Bulldog needed. He came back to visit us at Christmas and he brought back a few extra pounds with him. He looked awesome and we are so glad that he is happy with his new family.

We have heard that many refer to the Mastiff as the "Rock Crusher" since they tend to eat stones and other things that is not meant to be ingested. We have experienced and witnessed this with all of our Mastiffs. But, no matter how normal it became to see our dogs eat the gravel from the driveway and other items it was still a shock to us when our vet removed a 1" x 10" branch from Emma's abdomen. It wasn't just the fact that she found a way to eat it whole but it was more of a shock because we realized that it was in her for about 3 weeks. You see, our 10 month old Emma was sick off and on for about 3 weeks. After about 1 week we had Emma x-rayed and nothing was found to be abnormal so she was put on an antibiotic. All the time Emma was her playfull self untill dinner time where she tended not to keep her meals down. After 3 weeks she lost her playfullness, strength and about 25lbs. This time we took Emma to her regular vet and his x-rays revealed that she had a diaphragmatic hernia. Even though this was an expensive problem it was also a fixable one. Therefore, we scheduled surgury for the following morning. You can imagine our vets reaction when he opened her up and found a 10" stick protruding from her stomach. You see she ate the stick and then acting as a spear the stick penetrated the stomach wall where it then punctured her diaphram. The vet agrees that the stick was there for at least 3 weeks since it appeared that scare tissue had already formed around the hole and stick in her stomach.We are so lucky to have Emma with us today. She has been fighting the infection that this caused for about a week now and her youthful spirit is returning. We are not completely out of the woods but we have faith that she will do well and will be back in the ring within a few months.

It has been a couple months since Emma came home. She is doing Excellent and she is back to her youthful ways. We want to thank everyone for their support and we truly appreciate the prayers that were sent her way.