Paprika is headed to another vet today. He actually has been to see quite a few veterinarians lately. He came to us from North Carolina, where he had been sent home to die.

Pap is only 4 or 5 years old, but his kidneys are failing. He was first sick back in November and got IV fluids, but he didn’t get enough to get his blood toxins back to normal. Pap was in and out of the hospital in North Carolina three different times for fluids without ever getting enough fluids over a long enough period to lower his toxin levels to normal.

That is the first thing that we did when we got him in. He was on IV fluids for a little over a week. Follow up blood work showed that with the fluid flushing out his system he was almost normal.

I suspect Pap was given antifreeze, which killed off a lot of cells in his kidneys.

IV fluids were a huge first step, but not the only step for Pap.

Pap is a champion field trial beagle and is used for stud service. His puppies have been field champions also. The owners would really like to have Pap, but if he cannot be around, they would like some more puppies.

Since Pap had been sick since November, we didn’t know if he would produce any normal sperm. And also, the sperm had to be viable enough to collect and store. On a recent day, we collected a sample and found normal, living sperm. It did seem like the numbers were a little low, but honestly this is better than we had hoped for at this time.

Pap then made the trip to Louisville, Ky., to get sperm collected for freezing and long-term storage. His sperm was healthy and showed forward mobility, but he could not produce enough sperm to collect and store. When sperm is frozen and stored about half of the sperm die.

When you start with billions, half of that is not a big deal. When you start with a low number that means it has even less after storage. The reproductive specialist did not think there would be enough to have a reasonable chance at puppies.

Collecting, freezing, storing and implanting sperm is not a cheap process either, so it was doubly foolish if it was not going to work.

So, Pap came back to GAMC to continue his fluid therapy to give his system enough time to start to produce sperm again.

But Pap was looking great. He was eating better than he had been in months and “Jeff” was in heat and they really wanted Jeff/Pap puppies. So assisted breeding was attempted.

Pap wanted to, but he just didn’t have the energy for the 45-minute process.

Artificial insemination was the next step. Pap rested overnight, but was still quite interested in being a pupdad. Although most vets can do fresh collection and AI, with today’s schedule we decided that Pap would be better off going to another hospital to get a sample.

He will be coming back for more fluids and continued care.