Halla Guðbjörg Þórðardóttir had the dog Bjölla in the summer of 2011 and says she played a big role in helping him through a difficult time. Since then, Bjalla has been a member of the family and a big part of the family life of Halla, her husband and her sons, and rules the household with a tough hand, as is sometimes the custom for dogs. When Bjalla needed emergency surgery yesterday, Monday, Halla wanted to do everything she could to keep her best friend alive because they’ve been through a lot together.
“Bjalla has been part of my life for twelve years, I had her in the summer of 2011, then I had her as a little puppy. At the same time, my mother was in palliative care. Bjalla always accompanied me in the pocket of my jacket at my mother’s. Bjalla was so small, just under 700 grams when I got him. “Bjalla saved me a bit during this difficult time with my mother,” says Halla. His mother, María Gunnarsdóttir, died on September 7, 2011, at the age of 61.
Halla found Bjölla on bland.is, but the dog is a mix of Mini Pinscher and Toy Poodle.
“She’s a unique dog and a great character, she knows exactly what she wants, she loves to have fun with people who don’t want to talk to her, and wants to have as little fun as possible with people who really want her. talk. sound. It’s a huge character in a very small body,” says Halla. She says her friend has been through thick and thin.
Friends Halla and Bjalla, but the dog is recovering from an emergency operation
Cardiac arrest in Siglufjörður
“She started in 2013 as we were traveling between cities to visit her grandmother in Siglufjörður. There she was in a good mood playing with a puppy, when she fell and made a stop He just dies, my mother-in-law had a lot to do with his breathing and kneading to bring him back to life, and get him back. She took Bjölla to a vet in Akureyri, where it turned out that the dog had a respiratory infection.”Bjalla recovered very well and became the fittest,” says Halla.
“A year later, she is here at home in Grindavík playing in the garden and notices that the neighbor across the fence has brought a dog into the garden. She is so excited that she jumps in a flower pot, on the fence and over it, unless there is a fall of 180 cm over the fence. There she broke her leg. It was a problem to adjust her leg because she’s so small and her bone is like a toothpick they couldn’t drill or put screws in so there was a giant cast that extended way beyond the length of the leg She was also bitten by a much larger dog and given her blessing.”
No task is too big for Bjölla
It’s clear that Bjalla won’t let anything stop him and tells Halla when asked that this is the case. “She feels invincible and she does not hesitate, there is no task too big for Bjölla. She takes a bone from a dog ten times bigger than her and the bone is bigger than her. She doesn’t say anything. She’s a real ‘boss’ and no one takes that away from her. If she sits on a comfortable cushion, she won’t move in front of anyone,” Halla says and readily admits that Bjalla is the master of the House.
Bjalla is now twelve years old, which is much older than a dog. “It’s very old, she’s only 100 I think.” It’s amazing how resilient she is for her age, she jumps into bed and continues all the adventures as if nothing had happened. When the mail arrives, I can thank you for being able to read it, she takes the mail as soon as it goes through the hatch and lets the postwoman hear it. Our big dog barks and when there is a lot of commotion she scolds him,” says Halla. Six-year-old dog Kría also lives in the house. “The hen gave birth in December, then Bjalla took on the role of grandmother, playing and flirting with the puppies when they were able to walk, scolding them and playing with them. And confess that Bjalla is the master of the house
The kennel covered in blood
A weekend ago, Halla noticed some changes in Bjölla, which caused her to pay close attention to her over the weekend. “Friday was like she was going to start welding, which surprised me a lot, it’s been many years since she stopped welding and she’s long past the transition period. There were a few drops of blood coming out of her like it happens when dogs bleed she was cleaning up completely leaving drips and drips here and there I thought what was going on is there a feather in her And connected it to the fact that Kría gave birth in December and was just welding again now. Whether it’s messing up Bjöll’s pituitary or the hormone system. So I thought about it over the weekend and I thought about it. I looked at her, she was completely normal, she was eating and fidgeting, taking care to go for a walk when I wasn’t looking,” says Halla.
On Monday morning, she says two masks slipped off her when she opened the cages to let the dogs out to pee. “Then I open her cage and the bottom of the cage is covered in blood. And she is very small, a month ago I weighed her 2.3 kg which was heavy for her, she was always looked after. She had become a bit lumpy which I attributed to age and laziness as she wasn’t moving like she used to.I pick her up in my arms and find her belly isn’t as big she is thinner,” says Halla.
After a call to Suðurnesja Veterinary Clinic where Halla described the dog’s condition, she was told he probably had a virus or hysteritis and a vet wanted to examine him. “I take her to Keflavík, they examine her and do an ultrasound and see that there is hysteritis and infection in the blood. The vet told Bjölla that she was very old and the only option was an operation, which wasn’t sure she would survive. The vet looked me straight in the eye and said, “You’re not bringing her home. It’s either you say goodbye to her.” now, either she’s going to have emergency surgery.
An emergency operation that left veterinarians speechless
Halla says emergency surgery for these animals, as well as medical insurance, is no longer offered by insurance companies when the dogs reach the age of ten.
“I literally told them. ‘That dog should be dead a long time ago.’ Not just because of her age, but because of everything she’s been through in her life. She doesn’t give up so easily and I don’t give up. I wasn’t ready to give up. I couldn’t imagine not doing everything I could, I couldn’t imagine having to say goodbye to him if I didn’t have to. This dog is a very big part of our home life, which also played a big part in the fact that I never doubted going for surgery with her, rather than admitting defeat. and how the connection is to him in the beginning. She is my connection to my mother to a large extent, her age refers to how long it’s been since I lost my mother.”
So she gave the vet the go-ahead for Bjalla to undergo an emergency operation, if the final results of the organ values gave the go-ahead for the operation. So an operation was set up to remove the dog’s womb, and Halla got a call less than two hours later.
“She had surgery, but didn’t come out of it without problems. The vet had to rush to close her, because the dog’s life was at stake, she had to be resuscitated, she was not kidding closing her abdomen with a thin internal suture because every second counted to get her out of anesthesia. There was a person keeping her on the right side of the line. When they opened it, there was a huge, I don’t know what to say , kudos to the vets. They gaped and said they took a while to figure out what was there. What is it, what was she eating, it was a tumor bigger than my fist, they just thought where she had it, the tumor is a large percentage of her weight, after the operation it was 1.8 kg, it weighed exactly 2 kg. .”
The tumor (right) was bigger than Halla’s fist
Halla says Bjölla showed few signs of illness, she ate and exercised as usual. “When I get to the hospital, I hold her on a leash, I don’t hold her, and she rummages around and looks and she’s just curious about what’s going on around her.”
Halla says the vet and other people who attended Bjölla’s operation were excellent, but around 3-4 people attended the operation and Halla was allowed in as soon as it was completed.
“I have to go in and look and see what came out of her. I’ve wondered for a long time what she got herself into, did she get into the jumbo shrimp, it was really strange to see and big I thought how long it had been growing inside her and grass and my question is how is she still alive They say it’s hysteritis who brought this to light, they just looked at the uterus and probed it and saw the hysteritis where the uterus was much bigger than it should be, they didn’t look beyond above the uterus and the tumor wasn’t discovered until they cut it open.”
On the mend
Bjalla has returned home and is recovering from his last adventure. “She is in a more relaxed state, she is on strong painkillers and slept most of the day yesterday. I picked her up yesterday and told her to pee outside, she came down the stairs and did peed and sniffled and then came back to the den. She eats and comes out to pee, but otherwise she sleeps and rests and lets mom roll over and put her clothes on and stuff like that.”
As you can see, Bjalla is in a cute Moomin nightgown. “Finally, this boy’s mother had to go to a children’s clothing store and buy some girl’s nightgowns and dress him at home,” Halla laughs. “I buy her underwear and nightgowns rather than having a screen on her so she can’t lick and irritate the wound. It’s a more comfortable option for her than a skirmish, because she doesn’t let any clothes be offered to her.”
Bjalla is on the mend, resting well and feeling better
Halla says the staff at Dýralæknastofu Suðurnesja are excellent. “You could say that they deserve all the credit that Bjalla is alive. The operation was very demanding, and it was just a matter of keeping her alive. As soon as she was sedated, she had to maintain her saturation and her heartbeat, and they absolutely had to give her adrenaline to revive her. They worked incredibly hard to get her out of that tumor and keep her alive.”
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