Meet Enjoy🐾

Age at diagnosis: 2.5 years

Breed: Chihuahua

Enjoy is two and a half years old now - and in March, everything suddenly changed for us.

Looking back, it probably started a little earlier. About one to two weeks after a vaccination, I first had this strange feeling. Enjoy seemed somehow different. He didn’t really focus on me properly, and I couldn’t quite explain it, but something felt off. At the time, I tried not to think too much about it.

What also comes to mind now is that in the weeks before, he had been gagging occasionally, and sometimes fluid would come out of his nose. We had just been at the sea, and I was convinced it was related to that - that maybe he had swallowed some saltwater while playing or drinking. He had also been trembling from time to time, but I didn’t think much of it.

The next day, I went to the vet - mainly because of that concern. During the examination, the vet mentioned that he didn’t really turn properly to one side. But it didn’t seem alarming at the time, and it was treated as something not particularly concerning. So I didn’t worry about it either.

Over the next few days, I kept watching him. It was all very subtle. Small things that made me question myself. I kept thinking: maybe it has always been like this.

During a walk, I noticed that he was walking slightly off. But even then, I still tried to explain it away.

The next morning, everything was different. He got up and could barely walk. He kept losing balance and didn’t seem to have any strength. When I picked him up, he leaned to one side and held his head tilted. That was the moment I knew something was really wrong, and I went straight to the clinic.

They did an MRI and a spinal fluid test, and Enjoy had to stay there overnight. The next day, we were told: suspected GME.

I still remember how that felt - suddenly everything changes, and you have no idea what comes next.

Thankfully, we were able to take him home quite quickly, and we started treatment with corticosteroids right away. We began with 5 mg of prednisolone, and from that point on, things slowly started to improve.

There were no big leaps, just many small changes. But you could see that he was becoming more like himself again. After two weeks, we were able to reduce the dose to 2.5 mg, and he has been on that dose since.

Today, he is much more like himself again. He plays, he teases the other dog, and his personality is coming back. Some days, he walks almost like he did before all of this – and those are the moments that give me so much hope.

There are also days when he is very slow, gets tired quickly, and seems almost like an old dog. You notice it especially when we’re outside. But overall, there is a clear improvement.

The corticosteroids have made him a bit more sluggish, and he has gained some weight, which you can see now. But overall, it’s still manageable.

We still don’t know exactly what it is. Whether it really is GME or maybe a one-time immune reaction remains unclear.

That uncertainty is sometimes hard to deal with. And of course, there is always the fear of setbacks – especially on days when you watch him more closely or something seems slightly different.

But when I look at him, he’s just my Enjoy.

Enjoy is part of The Theo Project's canine meningitis registry - a growing global collection of MUE, MUO and SRMA stories shared to help families facing this diagnosis.