We lost our dog over the weekend

[2QUIK6]

Our standard poodle Roxy had to be put to sleep Saturday. She had only just turned 9 years old. Some of you dog lovers on the board may remember a post about her from 6 yeasr ago when she had a very bad seizure and I was asking about what others have done and dealt with a dog having seizures. She had back to back grand mal seizures and had to be recessitated..we thought we had lost her back then..went to say goodbye to her and she woke while we were there and didn't seize..she went seizure free for 6 years.

Last Sunday we put her outside and she seemed fine, her normal chiper self. We returned about 3 hours later and she could barely walk, looked exhausted.
Took her to the vet first thing the next morning on Monday and she was dianosed with a blood anemia where her red blood cells were killing each other.
Gave her IVs and seems to stabilize it and sent her home Tuesday evening with 3 meds to take. Said she would be slow for about a week as long as she was eating and drinking she would be ok...
By Thursday she seemed much better...we left Friday for about an hour, came back and she couldn't walk without leaning on something and kept twisting her neck around to her left real severely...all just hit suddenly.
Rushed her to the Vet hospital..her red blood count was 12, should be around 30, and her white blood cells were over 47. They gave her a blood transfusion and by Sat morning her blood work looked fine.
But appearently she had a bad stroke and was brain damaged, she was just laying there whinning and moaning, and couldn't stand on her own, she was helpless....it was sooo sad...brings tears to my eyes typing this.....

We made the desicision to have her put down as the prognosis was not very good, and the cause of the blood problems they felt may be something cancerous internally. My wife chose for us to remain present during the procedure so that Roxy would be with her while she went to sleep so we did and then left once she was asleep and before they injected the last drug... We brought her home and buried her with all her toys...that was the sadest thing I've done in a long time.. I have not lost a pet in over 20 years, and it was never this painful...first I've had to put to sleep too.

She loved the water and was a very affectionate dog to humans and to all other pets.
I found these pics and scanned them in, they didn't come out real well, but they are my favorites of her.

Her and our other dog Girlfriend and I tugging on sticks together in the lake

Her jumping of the jetski after a ride

Roxy and Girlfriend

She loved our cat too

 

[JoyOf6]

You have my sympathies. We went through something similar, only with a 2-year-old Border Collie who had metabolic problems that seemed under control. Then he had a stroke while running for a ball, immediately lost the use of his rear legs, and became blind within a day. He had to be put down under similar circumstances as yours. Extremely difficult and profoundly sad.

Best of luck, you did all you could do to give her a happy healthy life.

 

[klrv6]

Sorry for your loss.

At least she was in a loving home, you could give her no better gift than that.

 

[BOOSTBROTHER]

Our prayers are with you and your family at your time of loss.

 

[2QUIK6]

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

We're going to miss her curled up in bed with us on those cold nights.
Our other dog is going to be really depressed, she is not a people dog, she could care less about being petted, she only interacted with Roxy and now is friendless I'm almost as sad for her as we are about our loss of Roxy. She's 15 and can't deal with another puppy I don't think. My wife said she's done with having dogs that this was too hard for her. i tried to tell her she got 9 years of joy and companionship from her and it will just be a few weeks of pain. Roxy would follow her profusly around the house, and would have anxeity any time my wife left without her...(this started after that seizure attack 6 years ago)...have a feeling that with the blood problems helped trigger the stroke when we left her at home Friday.

 

[Renthorin]

Having put down 3 dogs in 2 years...I know how you feel.

The 'problem' if you will, with owning dogs is they are so short lived compared to ourselves. But then again, if it were not for that shorter lifespan I do not think we would grow as attached to them as we do.

The pain sucks for a while and then you feel better. As long as you have memories of Roxy she isn't really gone.

I always remain with them throughout the procedure and that can be hard. You can see the light leave their eyes and you know they are gone. :-(

My most recent to die was this January. He was also 9. Did the same thing right before I put him down. Twisted his head 180 around and was staring at his tail. After that he couldn't walk and it wasn't fair to him so I took him in.

You have my deepest sympathy.

Will

 

[2QUIK6]

Having put down 3 dogs in 2 years...I know how you feel.

The 'problem' if you will, with owning dogs is they are so short lived compared to ourselves. But then again, if it were not for that shorter lifespan I do not think we would grow as attached to them as we do.

The pain sucks for a while and then you feel better. As long as you have memories of Roxy she isn't really gone.

I always remain with them throughout the procedure and that can be hard. You can see the light leave their eyes and you know they are gone. :-(

My most recent to die was this January. He was also 9. Did the same thing right before I put him down. Twisted his head 180 around and was staring at his tail. After that he couldn't walk and it wasn't fair to him so I took him in.

You have my deepest sympathy.

Will

Wow, I couldn't image doing this 2 more times in a year or two That must really hurt.

When we left her at the hospital Friday night, when we went in to see her, she wagged her tail for about 3 seconds when my wife first leaned into her cage... but Saturday when we came back, there was no response when she saw us so we knew she was bad off. Yes, her little eyes just became very empty once the pain meds/anestesia were administred, as soon as she put her head down and closed them we left before the muscle reflexs set in, we couldn't take to see that, but at least we were the last people she saw. Didn't realize that when they die their eyes open back up, kind of freaked us out when we buried her and uncovered her face to kiss her goodbye and her eyes were open, my wife just knew she was still alive but her mouth was stiff already, had only been less than an hour.

Yes, she was doing the same thing, twisting her head 180 degrees like she was trying to bite her tail. The vet said she may not even know she's doing that as that may be what her brain is telling her muscles to do wihtout her control, which explains why she had such a confused looked on her face not knowing what was happening to her...its just horrible thinking about it.
Sorry to hear you've had to do this so many times..but I guess now I know what to expect if the situation ever presents itself again to us..this was the first time we had to do this. The dog I had as a kid my brother ran over accidently in the driveway..second dog, a German Shepard had nose cancer and got to where it bled all the time, my brother took it to the human society and didn't bring him back home to bury..then went 10-12 years without a dog until Girlfriend, the other dog in the pics showed up as a stray in the woods behind my house at the time...she's been with us for 12 years.

 

[BOOSTBROTHER]

We have a Golden Retriever he is 10 years old I got him when he was 5 weeks old. I never thought that a dog could become such a big part of your life, but he is a part of our family. He makes sure that nobody get near our 11 mo old son or my wife. From the day we brought Lannum (son) home max makes sure he is in whatever room Lannum is in if Lannum is sleeping max is at the foot of the bed. I regreat that max has a 10 year headstart on Lannum I know it will be hard on him when max is gone.

 

[Renthorin]

Not sure of course what happened to your girl but with my 9yo he had a tumor on top of his brain stem. When it got too large it put pressure on the spinal cord and he lost control of his movement.

 

[Buicksx2]

Rob,

I am sorry to hear of your loss and it's never easy, time does help and that is probably of little comfort to you now but it does. We lost our Old Englsih Mastiff 4 years ago next month and that wasn't easy and we went 2 plus years without another dog. Those two years were kinda empty coming home to an empty house where a 200 pounder used to come and greet you, it just plain sucked.

We have since replaced him with a 20 pound pug who thinks he is 200 pounds, sadly that's the facts of pet ownership, you know going in they do not live as long as you do and when that day comes it sucks plain and simple.

Again I am sorry for your loss.

 

[2QUIK6]

My wife said it would be hard to walk in the door tonight when she gets home from work. I'm usually already in bed and Roxy would be all excited to see her every night when she walks in. I too will be lonely here without her since my wife works evenings, it was usually just me and the dogs after I got home.
We always took the dogs together to the groomers and vet, Roxy always seems to comfort the older dog Girlfriend..without Roxy there she pants very hard and is nervous..as mentioned before, she doesn't like leaving the house and she doesn't like people too well, although Roxy taught her a few things in that regard and she does warm up to strangers a little better than the first 3 years before Roxy was here.

Will, not for certain exactly what happened to her, but her actions were consistant with a stroke and with her low red blood count, it may have made it easier for her to throw a clot and cause the stroke...as far as what caused the low red count in the first place...our regular vet just diagonosed it as an anemia that could come back or we may never have seen it again...the emergency clinic said 9 times out of 10 when it comes on that fast it is a sign of internal cancer of sorts in concert with the high white count. She was also moaning and whinning being very vocal and my wife couldn't stand to hear her and put her through any more rounds of tests or cat scans to determine the real cause, the dog sounded like she was in pain although the vet said she may not even know she's making the noise...maybe they said that just to put us at ease...I only beleive half of what some of those emergency vets tell me.
Our regular vet was out of town when this occurred, his admin faxed over the history to the emergency vet...and I find it interesting that the regular vet has not called us, we've dealt with him so long and he has an extremely good bed side manner and talks to us when in there alot on a personal level....my wife feels like if he would have done a blood transfusion when we had her in there at the first of the week that she might still be with us, I just think it may have prolonged it only by a few days or weeks since her red blood count was 15 when I picked her up Tuesday, and it had went back down to 12 by Friday even with her eating and drinking very well.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

I went through this with my cat 2 years ago. He was diagnosed with cancer, was fine one day, started loosing weight, given 1 month to live, and I did everything I could to make hime comfortable for the last month. His name was Buddy, cuz he was my buddy. He adopted me while I was still in school, just ran in the front door one day when I came home from school. It was very painful watching him go. Woke up about a month after the diagnosis and he was sprawled out on the kitchen floor breathing hard. I got ready for work, and then he fought me when I put him in the carrier to go have him put down. Luckily my brother took him to the vet, I couldn't handle it, sadly he didn't even make it the 2 miles to the vet. I took half a day off, helped dig the hole, and then went and hid in the computer room when my brother burried him. I was like your wife, no more pets... Its too hard to watch them go, and my dad was a vet for 30 years so I saw a lot of animals come and go. Almost exactly 2 years to the day another all black cat showed up on top of the GN, late at night, I thought it was buddy. This big dog of a cat was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. All I can say is, don't wait to get another dog. Like Buicksx2 said, its kinda empty coming home after beeing greeted at the door for many years. My new cat named BIG DOG, allows me to remember buddy fondly and enjoy the new cat.

The 1st pic is of buddy in his last month, the next 3 are of the "bull in a china shop" Big Dog. C'mon, how many people can say they have a cat named Dog.

 

[2QUIK6]

I just don't think our 15 year old dog could handle a puppy, but she could use another companion. The dog still with us has Cushings disease, a tumor on her platuetary (sp?) glad. She and Roxy had to take meds every 12 hours, Roxy for the seizures although she never had another one after that 1st time...my wife just wants a break from being tied down and making sure she had her meds without being more than an hour or 2 off each 12 hours. She's terrified we would get another dog that would have seizures/epilepsy and would require that again.
Glad to hear you have filled the void with your cat, our cat in the pics, Big Man is like my buddy since Roxy was tied so closely to my wife..he follows me around in the yard sometimes like a dog. Although it was very very difficult to do that to our dog and bury her, I'm glad we were there for us to be the last thing she saw and for us to say goodbye to her in private instead of at the vet.
I must say that is one unique looking cat, looks like he's on steroids in that one pic.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

His forearms are at least 2" in diameter, I finally figured out how he got that way. He weighs about 16 lbs (good bird killer, has brought 3 in this week) and is clumsy, so when jumping around he always misses and has to do a chin-up to get where he was aiming to jump. While home at lunch today, he tried jumping on the plastic kitchen trash can. It wasn't until time to land that he noticed there was no lid!! He did everything he could to save it, but he crashed, pulled the can down on himself and then took of like a bat outta heck. He had a run in with the 2 German Shepards that live behinde me about 2 months after moving in. That's what happened to his ear. He didn't come home for a week, then just showed up, several pounds lighter and almost missing an ear. The pics below are before the ear incident and pics from about 3 weeks after. He had bit marks all over him. Sadly, I haven't seen the 2 German shepards since then. I think they were getting up in age though.

I hear what you're saying on taking a break. I was grinding up food, giving him pills, having fluids injected into him, for about a month. I spent most of the time once I got home from work taking care of him. Cost me about $2000 in that one month getting him diagnosed and then keeping him comfortable, and I'd do it again.

Go to the local humane society. Then not only are you giving yourself a little present, you're more than likely saving a dogs life. Even moreso if you get one that is a few years older. Again, I'm really sorry for the loss, animals are innocent, that is why its so hard to see them go, but do yourself a favor and a little dog a favor and swing by the local shelter.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

He's been compared to Yoda and a Gremlin!

 

[Sweet6]

Sorry for your loss. I know how tough it is. I had to put down our 14 year old Std Poodle. He too had seizures when he was young. But there were not any side effects. I miss having that dog around. He always had to be by people. It was a tough loss. But he was fun for the almost 15 years we had him.

 

[nordy racer]

i'm TRUELY sorry to hear about your loss..

 

[Gary Wells]

Rob:
I am sorry to hear of you & your family's loss, Rob, but in time the pain will subside and only the happy memories will remain.

 

[Geoff87]

Rob - Sorry for your loss.

 

[klrv6]

Go to the local humane society. Then not only are you giving yourself a little present, you're more than likely saving a dogs life. Even moreso if you get one that is a few years older. Again, I'm really sorry for the loss, animals are innocent, that is why its so hard to see them go, but do yourself a favor and a little dog a favor and swing by the local shelter.

Very true. Just look at the good life you gave Roxy. Another one is in need right now. In a few months, you'll be glad you did. We did the same thing when we put one of our cats down.