Dogs & losing your best four legged friend
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:43 pm
Well this is kinda long but thought i'd share and have a moan in general about the short livedness of our 4 legged friends and the general crappiness life can throw at you sometimes.
10 years ago i got a dog from a rescue centre, age unknown, 2 or 3. he'd been liberated from a gipsy camp, tied up, food put out of reach, kicked abused etc.
Guess it was love at first sight and have been inseperable ever since, was my shadow, my guardian and always there.
Over cristmas he went off his food a bit, thought he was having a problem with his teeth. the vet looked, yes its possible and heres a weeks worth of painkillers.
The weeks tablets finished and he'd not improved, by then everything was shut for new year so gave him kids aspirin for a couple of days. Still no change and he just wasnt interested in eating.
Back to vets, saw a different chap. He cave hima once over, felt the belly etc. Could tell by the look on the chaps face it wasnt going to be good news.
Needed to see him in the main surgery next morning which was friday 4th.
Sedative, ultrasound and xray was needed to see what was what.
Held him & reassured him whilst he snoozed off, then onto the table to get looked at. The ultrasound was inconclusive, the xray looked bad, quite how bad couldnt tell. Emergency exploratory was needed immediately, he was already asleep so upping the anaesthetic wasnt something he'd have been aware of.
20 mins later its the worst news, poor chaps riddled with cancer, one of the reasons for the hope was if it was the spleen it could be removed safely, alas it was rife in the intetine and his liver was as good as destroyed.
Wouldnt have seen the week out. So just had to increase the anaesthetic to make his sleep permanent.
Was a black day that was, surprisingly kept my composure that day and the next. Couldnt bury him until Sunday morning, weather was too severe so he laid in state in the trav in the garage.
He was a big chap (50kg) , so only way to get him to his resting place was in the back of the range rover. Took hours to dig the grave beer assisted, gues sthats when it hit me really.
A week ago thought he had toothache and then he was gone.
Anyway it got worse, by friday had to have the vet out for the oldest pet sheep, she was only off colour and hadnt eaten for 24 hours, she didnt make it through the night.
Also had been waiting on a blood test result for the mountain dog, had felt a lump on her throat a few days before all that.
Results come back and its not good, either leukemia or lymphatic cancer.
the latter can respond to chaemo, but to find out if its the former which nothing can be done for then she may have 2 weeks based on the test results.
Wasnt perpared to have her knocked out and bone marrow taken for testing, if that was the case and positive it would have been unconfy for her, so decided that trying the chaeomo on the chance it will help migth be the way to go.
Well had the vets here last friday to give her first treatment - its one injenction once a week + 2 types of tablets daily. Wasnt prepared to go lugging her to the vets when she was so down hence having them come to her.
Of course with the swelling about her throat and feeling generally crap she's also been pining like mad for old Dennis, they've been companions since she was 8 weeks old, so tricky to tell if that wasnt contributing to her massive loss of appetite.
So the chaemo - it went well, apparently theres a 50/50 chance she could have been poorly from it, sickness, runs or such. But shockingly given the current run of luck no such thing. In fact within 2 days she was eating healthily, now at day 4 she's got an appetite like I dont remember her having and she seems to have lost years in her general demeanor.
It's hard to be trusting it what my eyes are seeing right now, nothing short of miraculous.
She's having another blood test on friday which should show something definative, but already its looking favourable that it isnt a bone marrow problem - if it was she would have continued deteriorating.
Just fingers crossed now that this will give her a year or more of remission (for dogs its done for that rather than the zap and aim to cure in humans so the dosages are much less although its the same drug combination apparently).
All told whatever the outcome its a brief period in life i shant forget in a hurry. Just seemed to be one bad thing after another. Was literally getting to the point of being numbed to it all.
On the bright side, yesterday she spend all day being cheauffered around the fields in the range rover whilst i was moving some fencing, even leapt out a couple of times to chase rabbits.
The vets bills are going to be hideous, already piaid for Dennis's stuff & the sheep, theyre a bit lax sending the bills and wanted any nasty surprises out of the way.
Bolli's chaemo will be 3-4 hundred a month, so slight change of plan as far as work goes, had closed the business at the end of december to get a few or more serious months into the renovating of ths place. Well thats all changed but thats a part of the responsibility of animals.
So there it is, the shortened version of the first 3 weeks of the year.
Yes i'm broken to bits at losing D, all that ever met him even some of you on here have & know that he was nothing short of a gent and a true gentle giant.
Thing is i got 10 years of unquestioning love & loyalty and it was mutual. Had it not been for a chance visit to a rescue centre and seeing teh dog that nobody wanted then i'd have missed out on all those years of his company, which it has to said was nothing more than a privelage.
Dennis to the left & Bolli on the right.
10 years ago i got a dog from a rescue centre, age unknown, 2 or 3. he'd been liberated from a gipsy camp, tied up, food put out of reach, kicked abused etc.
Guess it was love at first sight and have been inseperable ever since, was my shadow, my guardian and always there.
Over cristmas he went off his food a bit, thought he was having a problem with his teeth. the vet looked, yes its possible and heres a weeks worth of painkillers.
The weeks tablets finished and he'd not improved, by then everything was shut for new year so gave him kids aspirin for a couple of days. Still no change and he just wasnt interested in eating.
Back to vets, saw a different chap. He cave hima once over, felt the belly etc. Could tell by the look on the chaps face it wasnt going to be good news.
Needed to see him in the main surgery next morning which was friday 4th.
Sedative, ultrasound and xray was needed to see what was what.
Held him & reassured him whilst he snoozed off, then onto the table to get looked at. The ultrasound was inconclusive, the xray looked bad, quite how bad couldnt tell. Emergency exploratory was needed immediately, he was already asleep so upping the anaesthetic wasnt something he'd have been aware of.
20 mins later its the worst news, poor chaps riddled with cancer, one of the reasons for the hope was if it was the spleen it could be removed safely, alas it was rife in the intetine and his liver was as good as destroyed.
Wouldnt have seen the week out. So just had to increase the anaesthetic to make his sleep permanent.
Was a black day that was, surprisingly kept my composure that day and the next. Couldnt bury him until Sunday morning, weather was too severe so he laid in state in the trav in the garage.
He was a big chap (50kg) , so only way to get him to his resting place was in the back of the range rover. Took hours to dig the grave beer assisted, gues sthats when it hit me really.
A week ago thought he had toothache and then he was gone.
Anyway it got worse, by friday had to have the vet out for the oldest pet sheep, she was only off colour and hadnt eaten for 24 hours, she didnt make it through the night.
Also had been waiting on a blood test result for the mountain dog, had felt a lump on her throat a few days before all that.
Results come back and its not good, either leukemia or lymphatic cancer.
the latter can respond to chaemo, but to find out if its the former which nothing can be done for then she may have 2 weeks based on the test results.
Wasnt perpared to have her knocked out and bone marrow taken for testing, if that was the case and positive it would have been unconfy for her, so decided that trying the chaeomo on the chance it will help migth be the way to go.
Well had the vets here last friday to give her first treatment - its one injenction once a week + 2 types of tablets daily. Wasnt prepared to go lugging her to the vets when she was so down hence having them come to her.
Of course with the swelling about her throat and feeling generally crap she's also been pining like mad for old Dennis, they've been companions since she was 8 weeks old, so tricky to tell if that wasnt contributing to her massive loss of appetite.
So the chaemo - it went well, apparently theres a 50/50 chance she could have been poorly from it, sickness, runs or such. But shockingly given the current run of luck no such thing. In fact within 2 days she was eating healthily, now at day 4 she's got an appetite like I dont remember her having and she seems to have lost years in her general demeanor.
It's hard to be trusting it what my eyes are seeing right now, nothing short of miraculous.
She's having another blood test on friday which should show something definative, but already its looking favourable that it isnt a bone marrow problem - if it was she would have continued deteriorating.
Just fingers crossed now that this will give her a year or more of remission (for dogs its done for that rather than the zap and aim to cure in humans so the dosages are much less although its the same drug combination apparently).
All told whatever the outcome its a brief period in life i shant forget in a hurry. Just seemed to be one bad thing after another. Was literally getting to the point of being numbed to it all.
On the bright side, yesterday she spend all day being cheauffered around the fields in the range rover whilst i was moving some fencing, even leapt out a couple of times to chase rabbits.
The vets bills are going to be hideous, already piaid for Dennis's stuff & the sheep, theyre a bit lax sending the bills and wanted any nasty surprises out of the way.
Bolli's chaemo will be 3-4 hundred a month, so slight change of plan as far as work goes, had closed the business at the end of december to get a few or more serious months into the renovating of ths place. Well thats all changed but thats a part of the responsibility of animals.
So there it is, the shortened version of the first 3 weeks of the year.
Yes i'm broken to bits at losing D, all that ever met him even some of you on here have & know that he was nothing short of a gent and a true gentle giant.
Thing is i got 10 years of unquestioning love & loyalty and it was mutual. Had it not been for a chance visit to a rescue centre and seeing teh dog that nobody wanted then i'd have missed out on all those years of his company, which it has to said was nothing more than a privelage.
Dennis to the left & Bolli on the right.
