Pup is sick

denverpilot

denverpilot

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DenverPilot
Sigh.

Our almost 14 year old Husky mix who's already barely getting around, started not being able to keep food down about four days ago.

I'm off to the Vet to see what she says.

It's hard to see my buddy suffer. Stranger still that she doesn't seem all that bothered by it.

What's harder still is knowing the Vet is going to try really hard because that's her style.

Eb just hasn't been all that healthy for a long time now, but hasn't had any particular "event" where we'd choose to help her on her way to a peaceful end.

The dog acts interested in continuing the fight, refuses to stop climbing stairs (she's slid down them at least five times that we know of), and even with four days with almost no nourishment, she pops up and walks to the front door and looks out at the neighborhood and walks agonizingly slowly around the back yard on weak legs.

She's just a shadow of her former self, but her new self seems content -- which just kills me. If she'd show any signs of real distress it'd be easy to make a decision.

I know better than to keep an animal alive for myself and my feelings, but she's just hanging out here looking as normal as ever, just old.

I can't decide if I'm feeling too weak to fight, or too weak to let her go peacefully. Sucks.

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Hang in there Nate.....

She will let you know when it's time. The only thing our furry kids ask is that we do the right thing and not let them suffer. I'm sure you will provide her the dignity she deserves equal to the faithful companionship she has provided.


My Rotti battled cancer for a year. I said from day one if she suffers I will do the right thing. For one year she ate and played like a puppy, no hair loss no getting sick. I came home one day and saw the three cats gathered around and I feared the worse. She looked up at me, I knew it was time. I held her as they gave her the needle, I'm honestly choked up just typing this. I had no regrets, her picture sits on my work desk and she was a great friend. Heck, spent more years with her than my first wife and I'm sure she was way more loyal.
 
My little Moogie dog is getting old. She's having trouble with stairs, and has started to bark for no discernible reason. She can still make it outside just fine, so we're good for now. But she's old for her breed, and I am not looking forward to the inevitable. We got her just after we got the house, and it won't be a home without my Moogie.
 
Been there and I feel your pain. I put the 14 year old terrier down when he couldn't enjoy the two things he loved more than anything else, eating and hunting. I told the vet he was welcome to perform a necropsy. He did and said that the dog had a massive pancreatic tumor, he'd been suffering a lot and that putting him down was the right decision. Some dogs can be very stoic with pain and illness.
 
It's hard to lose a friend, specially one which loves you unconditionally.
 
Nate, I am right there with you. Our 12+ year old pup was giving all signs of fine, except he wasn't eating, and his breathing was a little hard. Just a little. Gasping that looked a lot like panting. Took him to the vet last Thursday, and got the kick in the gut. Cancer got into his heart area, leaking fluid and blood into his lung cavity. He was struggling to breathe, essentially suffocating, and all he does is smile and struggle through it. That day, the vet pulled 0.5 L from his lungs. Went back on Saturday and another 0.75 L taken out. He is doing fine, wagging his tail, getting around the house well. But it is tearing my heart up knowing one day very soon, he isn't going to wake up. Thanks for sharing and giving me a chance to share too.
 
Sorry to hear about your pup. My "boy" is only 5 but I hope he lives to be 14. Don't know what I'll do without him. It's always hard losing a close friend.
 
That's hard. Every time I lose a dog I think "never again". But they are so incredibly loyal companions and partners. My thoughts go out to you and your buddy.
 
Appreciate the kind thoughts.

I've posted a bit about her various conditions before but this one "felt different".

It is. Today I finally heard a vet say...

"We're not doing any tests as they'd just show us things we can't fix at her age. I believe your dog is entering a stage where we see rapid multiple organ failure and I would be surprised if she lasts more than a month. For now, take her home and feed her something like the best meals of her life. I recommend boiled chicken breasts with no skin or fat, white rice, and chicken broth. It's both enjoyable for her and also the chicken serves as protein, the rice is to settle the stomach from the nausea she will experience, and the broth will help her stay hydrated. This is end-of-life care. Track her good days and bad days and the trend. If there's three to four bad days where's things are headed the wrong direction, please consider putting her to sleep before you have a middle of the night crisis. Some people can never decide and if it were my dog, I wouldn't do that. The tripping and walking problems are neurological and untreatable. The nausea is the first sign of organ shutdown. The pacing and restlessness are pain indicators. She's already on pain meds and I just don't think it will be very long now. All we can do now is manage the symptoms."

I appreciated his honesty and needed to hear the words. We knew, but you question whether you're right.

I think the most humane thing we can do is pick a day we can both be present without work or other worries and see our loyal friend off in peace. I wasn't ready to say "do it" today, since Karen couldn't be here. She deserves time to say her goodbyes. She had four elderly patients of the human variety to see still today. (She works in home health care.)

I started down this mental path a few days ago, and really hit me last night that it's time, petting her next to the couch to calm her pacing behavior she gets at night sometimes now. Restless. She only stops if someone is petting her when she's doing that.

I couldn't tell if she was still nauseated and trying to be outside or if she was just fidgety. It appears it was probably both. So I didn't sleep. Just dozed in and out on the couch and watched for signs. In and out all night.

I'm guessing if things still seem poor this weekend, we will schedule for next week sometime. Karen has an out of town trip this weekend so we'll discuss what she wants if things go rapidly downhill, but I suspect I'll just have a long weekend, just me and the dog, which will be a little tough.

She'll get some car rides (have been lifting her up into the truck for a few years now) and some shared bites of hamburger patty or a tater tot or two if she's interested. She can't really run at the park anymore or I'd take her to do that too. Hopefully she just sleeps and gets some rest.

Vet have her an anti-vomiting med shot and some sub-cutaneous fluids today. It'll probably mean one "good" night. Then we see how the rest of the week and weekend goes.
 
The other big indicator was weight loss. She's lost 9 lbs in less than a year. I forgot to mention that.
 
I'm going to make damn good and certain that I don't keep my own ailing dog around for my own benefit. She deserves better.
 
steingar said:
I'm going to make damn good and certain that I don't keep my own ailing dog around for my own benefit. She deserves better.
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Yep. She's been generally happy and just ignoring her back legs having a mind of their own for about six months, but this week, the signs that she wasn't happy or healthy really popped out suddenly.

She had a bout or two of bad days in the last year but bounced back the next day. This time, no bounce.

It's my responsibility to make sure she's not going to pass away injured by a fall or so ill that she can't move. It's time.

Here she is, grey snoot and all, watching the world go by from her favorite spot in the back of the Yukon. Tonight will be a "good" night, as I mentioned did to the fluids and anti-nausea meds. We'll make the most of it by having her enjoy a truck ride.

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In the photo she's watching a group of high-schoolers intently as they talk and mess around behind their cars in a local parking lot. The brain is still there, the body is just dying under it. Years ago she would have attempted to jump the tailgate and run over to see them. Today she just watches, squinting in the warm summer sun.

It's about 90 out and she's sitting with her butt against the rear AC in the back. She has always been a smart one. Easy to train, and knew when to push on me to train me too. This will be hard, but I want to make sure she has a dignified passing and not one whimpering in pain or scared.
 
By the way, she was all black with just a tuft of white on her chest when we rescued her from the Dumb Friends League some 11 years ago.

She'd been neglected and chained up somewhere and had broken molars from chewing on the chain. She's had two oral surgeries to remove damaged teeth in her youth.

The pound said she was dropped by someone who couldn't bear to do it in person in one of their night drop kennels and had a puppy with her who died or was put down after she arrived. So she probably had one litter of pups at her age. They estimated she was late 2 or 3 when we adopted her.

They'd named her "Ebony" and we liked it, so it stuck. Shortened to "Ebby" most of the time. Or just "Eb" to get her attention.

I've joked the last few years that she looked like she was running out of toner and needed a new cartridge. :)

She was ultra-hyper in her youth and used to easily jump higher than my head. I'm 5' 11". It was her standard greeting until she started the first signs of arthritis around age 9 or 10. She never jumped into you, just straight up from no start and she'd look you right in the eye at your head level. Scared a few folks who weren't expecting it.

She only ever growled at a person once, she was startled by a friend who walked in the front door of our first condo unannounced. He didn't know we had her and she didn't know him. Never saw so much hair standing straight up on a dog's back before.

I barked her name and told her it was okay and she backed down. Didn't even have to grab her collar. She knew if I was okay, she was okay. She watched him warily for a few minutes and then walked up to him head-low, tail wagging (anxiety... most people think tail wags ate "happy", they're not), totally submissive, asking for a pet.

All was well. She laid at his feet the rest of the visit.

She had some herding instincts. She kept the cat corralled in the bedroom of the condo for almost two days once. He wasn't allowed past her until we told her to "leave it", her command for come away from whatever you're doing and sit here.

She and he were buddies and always got along after that. As he became elderly she'd nose to nose him on the couch as if to say, "How you doing old man?"

Most here will remember that he was struggling health-wise and passed away at 21 years old, the week I went to Nebraska to first fly with Jesse for my Instrument Rating.

She's going to join him soon in the hereafter if you believe in such things.

The only dog tussle she ever got in was a small aggressive dog. One ran up to her and started nipping at her neck from below, a daschund who even the owner admitted had mean streak. She just let all four legs out from under her and dropped on him, pinned him and when my dad reacted by grabbing her collar and lifting she had a canine tooth caught in his floppy ear on the way up. Tore a tiny chunk out of it, to which the owner said, "He probably deserved that." when I walked over to see if he was okay (and then offered to pay the vet bill, which she refused).

Her ability to run at high speed was worrisome when she was off-leash in open country. She tore off after a rabbit or three over the years and I wondered if we'd find her a mile away. Rabbits were an impossible to ignore thing for her. Even after training it was the one thing she'd bolt after and ignore all commands. I was also a lot younger then so I'd take off after her as fast as I could go, which was a lot slower than her!

Every once in a while she'd take off into the neighborhood if left unsupervised. Her version of a walkabout, she'd sniff every front yard for a few blocks and once I found her poking her head out of a missing panel in a neighbor's garage door with a look like, "Oh, were you looking for me?" ;) Maybe three times she did that. No fence would truly hold her with her jumping abilities no matter how tall. I saw her barely make it over a six-footer once. Scrambled over the top with all fours flailing. She'd seen, you guessed it. A bunny in the neighbor's yard. Rabbits. Her and rabbits. Always rabbits.

Apologies for the mini-trip down memory lane but I haven't felt ready to drive home yet. She just laid down and is looking like she's ready for a nap now in the cool Yukon so it's time to head home.

If there's a doggy Heaven, I hope she has all the bunnies she can chase.
 
Condolences, Nate. Clearly, when a really good person dies they get to be reincarnated as your dog. Thanks for sharing your memories.
 
We had a pure Sib - they live 12 years and 9 months on average - the standard distribution is only 3 month - she was born October 1991 and died April 3, 2005. She was old in Sib years but really had nothing wrong with her- no medicines - no hip problems no arthritis until april 3 2003 when we all woke and she did not get up with us - she could could not get up off the floor.

When I went to her and felt her she had a large mass in her groin. It was not there 3 week earlier when she had the annual vet visit. So - suddenly - we had to make the decision pretty much that day - if she was in any pain before that she was hiding it well since two days earlier she was out running in the yard with us.

But, her time was done . . . She was a good dog - but the lab we have now - oh boy - its gonna be tough when he passes . . . .
 
Sharing a photo a friend sent me.

The photo is of John and his dog Shoep. Shoep is a 19 year old Shepherd mix who has arthritis. John lives somewhere near Lake Superior.

John learned that Shoep's arthritis is soothed by floating in the water. Apparently for some time now he and Shoep go out in the lake nightly and Shoep trusts John so much that he falls asleep on his shoulder in the water every night.

If it were only arthritis, (well, and if she liked water, but she doesn't)... I'd be so honored and willing to do this for our dog. She's always been 100% loyal and she would greatly deserve it.

Both the unconditional trust of the dog and the love of his owner who rescued him at eight months old, captured in a single photograph.

Nicely done, John. Enjoy your nap, Shoep.

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I know how distraught you are right now. You're a good fur-dad, you've done great by her. Enjoy your moments...
 
You are reminding me of when our Golden had to be put down. It isn't easy, it hurts and we still miss her. Best of luck to you all.
 
denverpilot said:
Apologies for the mini-trip down memory lane but I haven't felt ready to drive home yet. She just laid down and is looking like she's ready for a nap now in the cool Yukon so it's time to head home.
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No need to apologize. None at all. The best friends hurt the most when they pass.
 
Putting our dog to sleep is one of the hardest things I have ever done as an adult. Our last dog lived over 15 years.

My condolences. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your dear friend.
 
It is so hard that they only live a fraction of our lives. When they are young, if you even think of that, it's always "some day" and then you quickly banish the thought. They age before you've barely passed from one generation to the next! The only thing you can do is savor each moment from the time they are little. It's such a profound loss because we are so close to our pets - closer than most people when you think of it.

How is she doing this morning?
 
A poem for you, Nate. Author unknown.

I'll lend you for a little time a dog of mine, he said.
For you to love while he lives, and mourn for when he's dead.

It maybe six or seven years or maybe more than these, but will you, till I
call him back, take care of him for me?

He'll bring his charm to gladden you, and should his stay be brief, you'll
have his memories, as solace for your grief.

I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return, but there are
lessons taught down there, I want this dog to learn.

I've looked this wide world over, in my search for teachers true, and from
the throngs that crowd life's lanes, I have selected you.

Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labour vain, nor hate me
when I come to call, and take him back again?

I fancied that I heard them say "Dear Lord, thy will be done", for all the
joy thy dog shall bring, for the risk of grief we'll run.

We'll shelter him with tenderness, we'll love him while we may, and for the
happiness we've known, forever grateful stay.

But should the angels call for him, we'll brave the bitter grief that comes,
and try to understand.
 
Condolences, my friend. Scratching my dog's ear now thinking about that day that will come for us, too. Roxy's a 10 year old shepherd/Akita mix who's starting to slow down a bit lately, too
 
Nate,

Sorry to hear this. You are losing a member of the family, and it really doesn't make it any easier when you know it's coming. At least you have the chance to make the humane decision and quietly let her go when you know it's time.

Not much else to say. I feel :( for you & your family.
 
Sorry Nate. I'm guessing that reading your story has brought back many memories to all of us who have lost a good friend under similar circumstances.

In Aspen last week I saw a Russell terrier that was a spitting image of J.P. and enjoyed petting him and telling him stories about one of his distant relatives who lived to be 17.
 
It's such a terribly difficult thing for you to go through. I'm very sorry about your friend and wish you both the best.

- Russ
 
It's hard to put down an animal when they are still trying to be happy.

I had a cat, Shamus, that ended up getting feline leukemia. The vet said that he might live a while with it, since he was so young (2 1/2 years old). Well, after a year, Shamus started to get really skinny. I brought him to the vet to get him examined and the vet found a large tumor in his abdomen. The vet said his prognosis was not good.

This made me torn of what to do. At this time, Shamus acted like his kitty self and acted like nothing was wrong with him. I felt like he still had a little bit of life to live and he deserved to live it, but at the same time, I didn't want him to suffer.

I decided to let him live it out. The cancer ended up spreading to his brain and affected his swallowing. One day I came home and his chest was soaking wet and I couldn't figure out why. It turns out that he couldn't swallow any more :( The poor kitty kept trying to drink water and couldn't get any down. He kept trying. Poor thing was so thirsty.

I knew what I needed to do. It broke my heart that I waited for it to get to that point, but it was a tough decision that I could barely make. It's a very tough thing to do.

I wish you well in your difficult time.
 
Our Golden is 13, about to turn 14. It really is sad seeing their health decline and I dread the inevitable day. Our dog is as blind as she could be and paces a whole lot, but she seems to enjoy life still and still does the "jig" when she knows its dinner time. It's true what they say, a dog really is a mans best friend. My thoughts are with you during this difficult time.
 
Thanks for all the kind thoughts. Ebby had a good day today mostly.

The chicken and rice seems to agree with her and she had a touch of extra energy today. Enough that when we decided to go pick up a pizza she jumped up, followed us to the back door and pushed her way past Karen to announce that she was going along.

This is what the Vet predicted. Good days and bad days. We'll watch for the turn to more bad than good.

For tonight, we will chalk up one more to the good column and count it a blessing for her and us both.
 
A good life is a progression of knowing good dogs and cats.
 
Bummer, Nate, but she's had a good life with you. I know you'll always remember that. Take care.....
 
Clone her! :eek:

Sorry, just trying to lighten up the situation for you Nate. End of life stuff is tuff. 14 years is a good run for a dog, something like 98 in doggy years. You gave her 12+ years of life by adopting her from the shelter. You gave her a great life and she has been loyal to you, that is what makes it tuff. Do the right thing.

Good luck my friend.
 
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Thanks again and great reminder and story on your pup, Scott. I had a Shepherd in high school who had the UV-induced cataracts that many dogs get up here at altitude and she had similar needs for eye drops, and meds.

Ebby took a big turn for the worse last night. I will spare you the details, but it's been made clear that it's time, and that's good in a sad way.

For those concerned, she's in no new pain or distress. The last two good days were just the very typical "last hoorah" seen in animals and humans alike, as her insides are shutting down.

Last night she felt good enough to want up on the couch in my lap, which is something she hadn't wanted to do for a while now due to the arthritis. She was insistent like she used to be long ago, and we all sat as a family with a 40 lb dog sprawled across both of us, getting a pet, watching the Olympics. Karen and I both remarked that it seemed amazing and having worked with elderly people, we both also said aloud it seemed like the last big push, but we weren't sure.

She's being stoic this morning, and still asked for her breakfast, but didn't eat it, and is walking slowly around the back yard right now. Sniffing things. Being a dog. Acting normal. But a sick one inside.

For an aviation related aside, she never flew with us. When I returned to flying she had never done it, and I was always concerned that since she had never been introduced to it younger, she might not care for it too much.

I'm curious how many folks here fly with their pets. I know Lynn and of course the doggie rescue pilots. Any others?

I think my next pup will be introduced to airplanes early and will be able to go along.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for her and letting me vent a little here on PoA.

We are headed to the vet just after noon.
 
Sorry to hear of your pup.
 
I think we all knew it would happen sooner than later. I think she has been (and still is) fortunate to have you there when she needed you most.
 
Ebony Duehr 1996-2012 RIP. (Vet's records showed she was older than we thought.) She's getting a pet from grandpa now. Sleep well good dog.
 
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