We woke last Friday before dawn to the sound of Snickerdoodle coughing up blood. It was alarming, to say the least. A few minutes later, the Doodlebug was in the car on the way to the vet, and I was trying to contain my nerves as I drove there, glancing over at him every couple of seconds to make sure he was breathing.

Some extensive testing and a couple of X-rays later, we learned that Snickerdoodle’s heartworm is at an advanced stage. Although we knew he had heartworm from the beginning, he seemed asymptomatic, so everybody assumed that his was a milder case — as is normally expected of young to mid-aged dogs. However, the presence of blood in his lungs and the swelling of his heart and clouding in his chest revealed by his xray puts him at a Class 3 (out of 4).  Dogs with a Class 3 diagnosis are risky to treat and have a “guarded” prognosis with treatment — an expected mortality rate of 10-20 percent. Snickerdoodle’s generally healthy behavior and appearance put him on the optimistic end of the prognosis, but still — ample reason for his doting foster mom to worry.

We had planned to wait a month to begin his treatment (a series of very painful arsenic-based injections into the deep muscle tissue in the lower back), but the new information increased the urgency. He had his first injection on Friday.

For the next ten weeks, our task is to keep the Dude very, very calm. The injection’s task is to break down the worms and effectively kill the disease over the course of 10 weeks. But a big risk associated with the treatment is that any increase in heart rate for the 10-week duration poses a risk of pulmonary thromboembolism (blood clots) because of the pieces of broken-down heartworm traveling through his blood. This is the greatest danger for dogs undergoing treatment, and is more of a threat with more severe cases like ours. This means that for two and a half months, the Dude can’t go for walks, play or run in the yard, or meet other dogs (which gets him VERY excited). The poor guy is on a strict regimen of rest, and with the stakes as high as they are, we are taking the doctor’s orders very seriously.

For Doodlebug, the doctor’s orders are complicated by his serious separation anxiety, which in the first few days (pre-treatment, thankfully) induced panics that resulted in destroyed crates, chewed furniture, and huge puddles of drool on the floor. We have been working overtime to combat his anxiety through a combination of herbal remedies, anti-anxiety meds, lots of ride-alongs for the Dude, and varying degrees of “free range” status in the house when we’re not home. We have slowly begun leaving the Dude and the Chick loose in the house together when we’re not around, hoping that Chick’s stability and company will serve as a comfort to Doodlebug. We’ve even set up a complex video monitoring scheme involving the cameras on our laptops and an iphone, so that we may spy on the Dude when we’re not home and make sure he’s not working himself into a heart-thumping panic.

We’re not sure what his heartworm will mean for Doodlebug long-term. If he survives treatment, he may live a decade or longer, and grow to be a very old man. That is our dream for him. Some dogs treated for heartworm suffer from abbreviated lifespans, while others go on to live full and healthy lives. The result depends on the severity of the disease, how long it was in the dog’s system, the dog’s genes, and a little bit of luck. But for now, he needs to get through the treatment. If everything goes well through the end of March, we’ll know he’s out of the woods.

It turns out Snickerdoodle has trouble being alone.

The first night in our home, he cleverly broke his way out of his wire dog crate. When we entered his room to  greet him in the morning, the crate was totally intact and standing in the center of the room — about six feet away from the corner where we had left it and him. And the Dude was peacefully sleeping on the sofa, not a furrowed brow on him. He yawned,  stretched, crossing his paws across each other, and looked at us with those big amber eyes as though to say “Good morning, friends!”

We secured his crate with zip ties to prevent further escapes, but the poor little guy couldn’t resist the urge to continue his Houdini ways, through various creative means.  In two more days our crate waved its white flag and surrendered. Seeing how much stress and anxiety confinement was causing him, we thought we’d try leaving him uncrated in a room. After all, he had slept the whole rest of the first night on the sofa without so much as ruffling a feather in the sofa pillows.

Score.

For several days, Dude slept happily on our bed while we came and went, never causing more damage than an innocent little puddle of drool from his happy, heavy slumber.

And then just as we were feeling quite confident in his easygoing nature, he reminded us why we don’t give foster dogs too much freedom too quickly. Foster mom left for the gym one evening, and foster dad came home an hour and a half later to a wide-eyed Dude sitting on the bed with a mound of sawdust on the pillows and a shredded wood headboard.

Oops.

Such are the trials of dog fostering, we told ourselves. We’re amazed that we’ve churned through eight foster dogs with no damage of any kind. It just figures that the first sign of destruction would come from one of our most gentle, docile, sweet fosters of all. Right now we’re feeling luckier than ever that he and the Chick get along so well — a dog with serious separation anxiety would be much harder to work with if he and our own picky, grumpy Chick had to be separated at all times.

A more food-motivated dog might be entertained by a challenging puzzle that keeps him busy long enough to forget about the trauma of being left behind — but not our Doodlebug. Snickerdoodle barely eats, and although he is getting better, he is not nearly interested enough in snacks to be distracted from our goings and comings.

We’re off to the pharmacy to pick up some anxiety meds, and will be trying a slow introduction to a different crate. It could be a long journey ahead for Snickerdoodle, but we’re up to the challenge — we love the little dude, and we’ll work with him for as long as it takes.

It’s funny, how some of them find the way to your heart as though they were hitching a ride on cupid’s arrow.

Don’t get us wrong. We have loved every one of our foster dogs to little bits and pieces. With some of them, the bond we’ve formed feels almost as strong as the one we share with our own Sir Chick. But with Snickerdoodle? We fell hard and fast. Within 24 hours, I was saying to foster dad “we’re going to keep him.” Within 48, I was brainstorming how we could possibly squeeze three dogs into our tiny house — two of our own plus a foster.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve threatened to keep at least four our fosters so far, and gone on to bravely find them a perfect home of their own. Saying goodbye has been bittersweet with most of them, and I’ve cried after sending off at least half of them. But we’ve done what’s best for them and sent them on their way. I’m putting my money on the same thing happening with Snickerdoodle.

We’re already mourning the day in the future when we’ll have to say goodbye, but in the meantime, we’re walking on clouds and loving every minute.