I thought we were going to lose Jester last week. That's not the funny part...obviously. Jester's a very old sheep - we've had him 11 years and he was at least two or three when we got him. He and Elizabeth are the last of our original five Jacobs from Indiana and while I'm sure that day is rapidly approaching, "[He's] not quite dead yet!" ;-).
He's had a huge growth on the front of his neck for the last three or so years. We've had several different vets look at it and without doing surgery, no one can say for sure what it is. Since he was then already a very old sheep, we didn't want to put him through that and he's gotten along pretty well. Until last Tuesday.
He was "fine" in the morning and at noon, but at the evening feed, something was very wrong. He was breathing and coughing like he had an advanced case of pneumonia. He sounded terrible and was not interested in eating, even a cookie (and he has an incredible sweet tooth!). Jacobs are very stoic sheep, but still...how could I have missed that he was getting that sick.
We immediately began treating him for pneumonia, but I thought it didn't look good. He was very sick, the weather was awful (single digits again), his age and the compromised condition of his neck could only be working against him...
Over the next couple of days he didn't get any better. But, oddly, he didn't get any worse. He still wasn't eating, maybe wasn't drinking, he hated being handled and given shots and bottom line he wasn't getting any better. I started having to think about making the tough decision. While it's a hard decision, watching an animal suffer is even harder.
I called Dr. Baron and brought her up to speed with what I knew, what I didn't know. She and Lou came out, we cornered Jester in the little shed and she started checking him over. Surprisingly his lungs were clear. His neck was definitely the issue. And while it could have just been the growth (or whatever) finally getting big enough to cause serious problems, she wondered if he'd injured it on something, causing extra swelling, which was in turn causing the strider breathing and coughing.
Because he hadn't shown any signs of being ready to give up, we decided to treat him with some steroids and see what happened. Steroids would take down any inflammation, make him feel a little better and stimulate his appetite. She pulled out a syringe and he knew what was coming. He might be old, but he's not feeble! It was all Lou could do to hang on to him while Natalie gave him the shot. What he did next took us all by surprise.
He walked over an punched Elizabeth!
"Jester!"
And he did it again! Louanne was the closest and she immediately got between them. He acted like he was going to do it again so I told her to grab him and drag him out of there.
"Jester! What are you thinking?!?"
Tim said we needed to file an EPO (Elizabeth Protection Order). Grumpy old men who don't feel good... ;-)
"It's okay. I've forgiven him. He was just having a really bad day and he really hates shots."
And the best part is he's feeling much better :-D. He started back
eating and drinking over the weekend. He still didn't seem quite back
to "normal" and still wasn't eating cookies, but I thought yesterday he
looked a little brighter. And this morning?
"I'm ready for that cookie, lady!"
Yay, Jester! Yay, good friends and vets! Yay, Vanilla Wafers ;-)
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