1
General Board for Big Dogs with Big Paws / Mourning Bo
« on: July 31, 2009, 11:20:08 pm »
I feel like a doggy mom failure. We started 2009 with 3 dogs, knowing we had to put one down. She died in a horrible way before we made the final decision and I experienced a lot of guilt and shame over that.
Two weeks ago today Bo, our Lab and the only dog we raised from a pup, became ill. I left the vet call up to my husband (they have Saturday hours), but as he was still drinking water and eating minimally we both agreed to wait and see. Raja gives us so many scares like this (and our vet is great about phone consults and with these positive things in place it's generally agreed to take the wait and see approach).
By late Saturday he wasn't drinking water and his walking was off. We rushed him to the emergency vet where he quickly continued to decline while testing was done. In the end it was Addison's Disease and his kidneys were failing and there was suspected heart damage. We had to make a very quick decision on the spot and put him to sleep.
The vet was actually great and really stopped us from making the "do anything" rash decision as our credit card was in our hands. I'll never forget his words, "This isn't like we had hoped, a dog that just ate something, do a surgery, pay a couple of thousand dollars and be done with it, it's going to cost a lot more than that even to find out if he can survive and the other costs will continue forever."
We picked up his ashes today. We are now a one dog family.
Two weeks ago today Bo, our Lab and the only dog we raised from a pup, became ill. I left the vet call up to my husband (they have Saturday hours), but as he was still drinking water and eating minimally we both agreed to wait and see. Raja gives us so many scares like this (and our vet is great about phone consults and with these positive things in place it's generally agreed to take the wait and see approach).
By late Saturday he wasn't drinking water and his walking was off. We rushed him to the emergency vet where he quickly continued to decline while testing was done. In the end it was Addison's Disease and his kidneys were failing and there was suspected heart damage. We had to make a very quick decision on the spot and put him to sleep.
The vet was actually great and really stopped us from making the "do anything" rash decision as our credit card was in our hands. I'll never forget his words, "This isn't like we had hoped, a dog that just ate something, do a surgery, pay a couple of thousand dollars and be done with it, it's going to cost a lot more than that even to find out if he can survive and the other costs will continue forever."
We picked up his ashes today. We are now a one dog family.