R.I.P. Frisket of New York City

21 August 2017

Hard to say good bye

Frisket passed away this afternoon.

Last month she suffered a grand mal seizure. We'd also noticed her appetite had become voracious, where weeks earlier we had to convince her to eat.

A visit to the vet confirmed she had a mass on her liver. She had a second seizure a couple of days later, then went over a week before the next seizure.

The seizures became more regular and left her drained. We believe the cancer had spread into her brain.

She just looked done.

So we watched the eclipse this afternoon, and then headed to the vet who's treated her through the kidney disease and this disaster of a year.

We wheeled her around DUMBO but she just seemed out of it (she'd had another seizure this morning, oddly the morning seizures were all between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m.).

She was a good friend.

28 April 2017

Frisket's Fifth Annual “Last Road Trip”

Due to circumstances as a result of her spinal injury in December, Frisket cannot be boarded anywhere anymore. Well, more truthfully, we don't trust anyone to board her anymore.

So, she's taking another last road trip, this time to booming Broomfield, Colorado via Erie, PA, Chicago,IL and Omaha, NE.

We expect to leave NYC around the 14th or 15th of May 2017, arriving in Broomfield on the 20th give or take a day.

This last road trip comes six months after her last last road trip in November to Miami Beach for Thanksgiving 2016.

Previous last road trips include Provincetown, MA in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as well as Boston in 2016, Chicago in 2014 and Miami Beach in 2015.

Clearly we're being flexible about what actually is a last road trip.

As far as her health goes, she seems to have recovered from the spinal injury incurred in December 2016 but her rear legs have withered to the point that she cannot put weight on them let alone stand or walk on them. Her front legs have recovered and she will actively use them to walk if someone holds up her rear end. We've tried using a wheelchair with her to extremely limited success.

Frisket is on Instagram and Twitter

Frisket has had a Twitter account for years, and even an Instagram account. The Twitter account is @frisketofnyc and the Instagram account is similarly @frisketofnyc.

28 December 2016

Frisket is home

We brought Frisket home today.

Her condition has stablized but she is in pretty bad shape.

The dehydration seems to have permanently damaged her kidneys.

She's on prednisone which the vets hope will help with whatever is going on in her spine. She does not appear to be in pain, it may be a slipped disc, which is still bad, but not as bad as a ruptured disc or something else.

We had an intense discussion with the vets about getting her an MRI. But since she cannot be anesthesized, she can't be operated on. And since she can&apos.t receive anesthesia, she can't get an MRI anyway.

At one point one of the vets said She is a very stubborn dog. She can prop herself up with her front legs but that't about it.

28 December 2016

Frisket's condition is very grim. We spent time with her tonight and she's just not bouncing back.

They expect to give her a blood transfusion overnight to try to stabilize her kidney values, which are off–the–scale bad.

27 December 2016

We are still trying to piece together what happened, but Frisket is in a veterinary emergency room tonight recovering from severe dehydration as well as an apparent injury to her spine. We picked her up from boarding yesterday and only learned when we got to the boarding place that she was down, hadn't been walking at all and was severely lethargic.

I stayed up with her overnight, she could barely walk at all or place weight on her rear legs, and her eyes were very sunken. She drank some water, and urinated a little bit but clearly something was very wrong.

23 March 2015

Bonus @underlinecoffee #coffee #goldenretriever #dogs with @frisketofnyc @CanCH_Sailor

Bonus @underlinecoffee #Coffee #goldenretriever #Dogs with @frisketofnyc @CanCH_Sailor

Merry Christmas from Frisket & Sailor

From Stone Street Coffee…

Daily Coffee Dogs with @frisketofnyc and @canch_sailor

To Broadway…

Something's moving in the sidewalk steam. And the dogs lie down on Broadway.

12 November 2013

Daily Hudson River Park Dogs 9 November 2013

24 September 2013

Catching up

So, the software that runs this site coughed up a major hairball some time last year, resulting in this nice frozen-in-2006 look. Rather than continue the frozen look I thought I'd add a post by hand.

Frisket and Sailor are ok.

They had an “interesting” 2012.

In February they were both diagnosed with early stage kidney disease. The causes are unknown. They have been responding well to treatment (enalipril for both and norvasc in addition for Frisket).

In the course of investigating the kidney disease we discovered Frisket had a tumor on her parathyroid. This was the root cause of her loss of muscle mass (which I probably didn't blog). By the time of her surgery in May she was having difficulty walking much and her rear legs frequently just dropped out from under her.

She had surgery in early May 2012 and recovered fantastically, within a month she had picked up much more muscle mass and was jumping atop park benches and beds with abandon.

In June 2012 we moved from the DUMBO section of Brooklyn to West Chelsea in Manhattan.

The dogs mostly adapted well to the change of scene but they miss Brooklyn Bridge Park.

In July I started working full-time for the first time in years, another change which they mostly accepted, though this meant attending "doggie day care" almost daily due to the ongoing renovation work in our condo.

In October we got hit by the hurricane, and while our apartment was ok, the building flooded requiring our temporary displacement to a hotel on Union Square (which we'd happened to stay at during the move).

Fast forward into this year: I'm no longer working full time (and the dogs are quite happy about that). Frisket has a weird eye thing going on which may be a nerve problem or sign of a tumor somewhere undetectable (we've run tests: nada).