My buddy Sky came down with pneumonia, day two of not eating we took him to the emergency vets, he spent 49 hours there on IV liquids and oxygen, he was allowed to come home but we still have to give him lactated ringers and a antibiotic in needle form. Surprised me how needles don’t bother dogs.
I too am glad that he's on the mend. I hope that you have pet insurance; that sounds like a big bill came with the visit.
No pet insurance, we pay as we go (Care Credit card) plus cash to keep card balance down. So far it’s over 5 grand.
Been there done that. I have pet insurance on our younger shepherd, but they wanted $4,600 plus for one year for our eight-year-old Shepherd. I think you can guess what I said to that.
...glad to hear he's back home recuperating. The fact that you acted promptly had a lot to do with his recovery. There are some nasty strains of contagious canine pneumonia out there these days. I have great respect for vet ERs. When our Dobie "Truman" went into congestive heart failure at age 8, we rushed him to local ER. They kept him in oxygen "tent" (plexiglass cage) for a couple days while his O2 sats stabilized. Thanks to ER staff, vet cardiologist, and Pimobendan, we had him for 2 more years. Dobies with treated Dilated Cardiomyopathy generally survive 3 - 6 months. I'm luckier than you. Whenever any of our 4-legged family members need injections/IVs/etc, my wife, a 40-year healthcare professional, is our resident "vet"... Truman's story that night at ER is a little longer. Doc tried for 2 hours to get his O2 sats up. Lasix wasn't working, couldn't get sats over 50-55%. We agreed he couldn't live his life that way and decided to put him down. He was brought to us in Quiet Room for our goodbyes. Sitting there together on the floor, he started peeing, about 2 liters according to my wife. When doc came in with syringes to put him down, my wife, knowing that eliminating that much fluid should affect O2 sats, said "humor me and take another blood oxygen reading." A bit surprised, doc agreed, and we watched Truman's sats start to rise. When they reached 80%, we looked at each other and said "we're not doing this tonight." Doc told us keeping him there would be expensive. Our response: "we may have to do this tomorrow, but he deserves the chance tonight." When we returned in the morning, his sats were in the 90s...
Thank you for your story! It almost mirrors what my wife and I are doing at home right now, Sky is alert, he eats when he’s hungry (never been food motivated) he drinks water a lot, pees a lot, sometimes on the floor cause he’s too wobbly weak to stand and we have issues getting him outside every few hours to pee. My wife and I are whipped, both physically and mentally, we’ll yell at each other about “well you didn’t take him out” so it goes back and forth, then she yells for me at 1:30 am cause Sky pancaked on the floor and she can’t lift him back up. We don’t want to give up on him, the vet says it’s going to take awhile for him to recover, we talked about putting him down but I almost cry thinking “we can’t give up just because he’s an inconvenience right now” Your story is inspiring to me, thank you!
...he's a family member, you do what you have to do. If you succeed you won't remember the difficulties, if not, you'll know you did everything possible. Do you think he'd tolerate a dog sling, could help his walking stability 'till he's stronger. You could walk him out like a suitcase...
I’m saddened to say we had to put my buddy Sky down Thursday My wife took him for his checkup, they said he was worse than before. He also developed a grumbly cough, but being he has no voice box ( previous owner had it removed) he can’t cough. The doctor said he would need ICU care, but even at that there was no guarantee he would recover considering his age I left work early and Pam and I went to the emergency vet hospital were Sky was, and said our goodbyes, I cried like a baby, I HATE doing this and it NEVER gets easier. The vet said she’s seen too many dogs that have no vocal cords come down with respiratory issues, something to do with aspiration. If you can’t handle a dog barking, or a cat clawing DONT HAVE ONE!
Mark, Sorry for your loss I know how hard it is to make the decision and then be there with them as they slip away. I don't look forward to the next one but when its time I feel you should be there with them for the end. Remember all the good times!
