Hari’s Story

Age at diagnosis: 22 months

Breed: Welsh Springer Spaniel

Hari is the second Welsh Springer Spaniel I have had with this disease. Her half brother (same dad) was diagnosed with GME when he was 3 years old, and we managed his symptoms through his life with immune suppressors. He was 12 years old when he passed, and outlived his twin! Hari's symptoms are not as severe as Chester's — he used to go around in circles and get stuck in corners. Hari's seem to present more to her neck and movement around her back legs. She responds well to prednisone but did have extreme thirst and hunger, and gained a pot belly when on a high dose, along with losing fur thickness — these have all remedied though as we reduced the dosage. We have tried to wean her completely off it around 4 times now over the last 3 and a bit years and around the two week mark she starts to relapse, so we are now on a maintenance dose of 5mg every 3rd day (2 day break in between) and every other day on 2 tablets of Azamun. She does get recurring UTIs, so is on antibiotics for two weeks at a time when she suffers. Each night she has 1 gabapentin. These tablets seem to keep her relatively pain free and let her enjoy her life. We were advised not to vaccinate again — both with my previous boy and with Hari. Last year she did have the nasal kennel cough vaccine as she was going into kennels, and she did okay after having it. However, we feel the kennels were too much for her, so in future we would probably look at a house sitter. She lives a good life — I do send her with the local dog walker and her brother twice a week on a small pack walk. She loves it! Other than not being able to jump on the bed or in the car without a little boost from us, she lives her life to the max and is very vocal about it. 🙂

Hari 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.