related unrelated (dog post only feel free to skip past).. I learned very quickly over these past few days the difference between a sick dog and a dying dog and I’m quite upset with my Vet.. I brought him in on Tuesday and by Saturday afternoon he was gone. On Tuesday she examined him and gave him some fluids and medicine but sort of hinted at euthanasia.. I said it out loud cuz I want her to know I won’t fight euthanizing him if it’s time. She said take him home and watch him if there’s no improvement in 2 days we can talk.
On Friday the vet office calls and asks what’s going on and I explain he’s worse, he’s no longer eating, he doesn’t seem to understand what his water is, and he can’t lay down, he just keeps popping back up and wandering or staring, and it’s clear his mind his almost gone. She says she’ll have the vet call me back.. They were open for multiple hours after that phone call and they were open multiple hours yesterday, but I never once received a call back.
To be fair to the vet, I wasn’t going to euthanize him until this morning at the earliest.. I needed time for my family to come home and say good bye. He didn’t make it though.. From the moment he stopped drinking water by himself it took about 48 hours and he was dead. He fought every single second during these past couple days. Unfortunately I couldn’t even force liquid into him.. The same method you use to give dogs liquid meds behind their teeth did nothing, it was like his throat was closed off.
I’ve smelled smells I could never imagine, and I’ve been responsible for picking up body parts, and that didn’t touch the smells from the dog. There is a very distinct scent when a dog voids it’s bowels versus just poops, you will not mistake it, I associated it with burnt death.
Anyway.. I’m not sure what the vets expectations were but I wasn’t about to sit and let the corpse of my dead dog decompose while I waited for Monday. We took him to a pet crematorium last night. All of this stuff is because we live in city limits. If we lived outside of the city limits I would’ve done everything myself, but you can’t shoot a dog and then incinerate it within city limits without people losing their minds.
As far as my vet goes, I’m a bit concerned she wasn’t able to see how close to death he was. If nothing else, for the ungodly amount of money they charge, I figured she’d be a little more proactive. Anyone whose owned dogs knows that once they start dying it goes really fast. In my mind, she should’ve known. She saw him almost a year ago exactly, diagnosed him as blind, and weighed him at 15 pounds. This time he was lethargic and weighed 8 pounds.. He lost half his body weight over 3-5 weeks, I’m concerned this wasn’t a bigger sign to her, especially when the X-ray showed no obstructions.
There’s a strong possibility that I am just redirecting my emotions to annoyance with the vet.. I spent the last 3 days watching my dog die as I helplessly tried to get him to eat and drink so in all likelihood the vet did exactly what she should’ve done and I’m just immaturely taking it out on her in my mind.
. She looks happy
sorry.
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