Sick puppy

[Cyclonepride]

Well, after getting her all well and numerous trips to the vet to do so, she had a full seizure at 1:30 am this morning, and woke back up at 5 with partial seizures every few minutes. Took her to the emergency vet hospital in Des Moines, but I'm afraid with the frequency of the seizures that something major is wrong. I have tried to prepare my wife for the hard decision that is about to come.

 

[Mtowncyclone13]

So sorry to hear about this. I wish you the best of luck when deciding about her future.

 

[carvers4math]

So hoping she is ok. Not sure if it means anything, but several years ago our 12 year old dog started having seizures and it was a brain tumor. He exhibited no symptoms before the first seizure. Your pup had much different symptoms so luckily probably something very different. So sorry for what you are going through.

We did get several more happy months for our dog on anti-seizure medicine before we had to put him down, in case someone faces a similar problem. ISU Vet Med was great to him, our local vet was so bad we wound up switching with our current dog.

 

[ThatllDoCy]

Oh, boy. Hoping your pup ends up ok.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

I've had to make those choices, too many times, with dogs AND with cats. It's never easy...I'm so sorry you're facing it.

I'm holding you & your wife in my thoughts...

 

[ImJustKCClone]

It occurs to me that maybe we should have giant tortoises for pets, as they will surely outlive each of us...

 

[cyrevkah]

That's really sad Pride. I hope she is able to heal.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Well, the preliminary thought, when considering her prior problems, is that she may have meningitis that is affecting her nervous system (the medication is not settling her down). This would mean an MRI and spinal fluid check at Iowa State.

They are getting estimates now, and are also supposed to give us an overall prognosis along with it.

 

[SC Cy]

Best wishes to you and the pup Cyclonepride...

 

[carvers4math]

ISU Vet Med was very good with both explaining costs and prognosis and discussing quality of life. Fingers crossed.

 

[cloneswereall]

It occurs to me that maybe we should have giant tortoises for pets, as they will surely outlive each of us...

You know, I've thought about getting a parrot before. Teach it the name of someone I despise (Terry), get it to constantly say things like "**** you, Terry," "I slept with your wife, Terry" and "Terry's a doucherton" (so Terry has to hear this all day every day and be reminded of my hatred for him), and leave this Terry my "pet" that will outlive me in my will. You know, with a promise of a bunch of money if the bird lives X amount of years and is cared for. Maybe like 20 years or something and hope the bird dies 19 years into his caretaking and receiving posthumous verbal abuse from myself, leaving him without the lump-sum of money and upset that he spent 19 years partaking in his own abuse from beyond the grave.

 

[ImJustKCClone]

You know, I've thought about getting a parrot before. Teach it the name of someone I despise (Terry), get it to constantly say things like "**** you, Terry," "I slept with your wife, Terry" and "Terry's a doucherton" (so Terry has to hear this all day every day and be reminded of my hatred for him), and leave this Terry my "pet" that will outlive me in my will. You know, with a promise of a bunch of money if the bird lives X amount of years and is cared for. Maybe like 20 years or something and hope the bird dies 19 years into his caretaking and receiving posthumous verbal abuse from myself, leaving him without the lump-sum of money and upset that he spent 19 years partaking in his own abuse from beyond the grave.

Remind me to never get on your bad side...

 

[SplitIdentity]

You know, I've thought about getting a parrot before. Teach it the name of someone I despise (Terry), get it to constantly say things like "**** you, Terry," "I slept with your wife, Terry" and "Terry's a doucherton" (so Terry has to hear this all day every day and be reminded of my hatred for him), and leave this Terry my "pet" that will outlive me in my will. You know, with a promise of a bunch of money if the bird lives X amount of years and is cared for. Maybe like 20 years or something and hope the bird dies 19 years into his caretaking and receiving posthumous verbal abuse from myself, leaving him without the lump-sum of money and upset that he spent 19 years partaking in his own abuse from beyond the grave.

You could have a chip implanted into the bird, and set it to explode after 19 years...

On a serious note, here's to hoping your pup is OK. I can only imagine your stress. I get nervous enough when the littlest things happen to our, I know when that day comes I'll be a wreck.

 

[cyrocksmypants]

Hoping your puppy is ok. And good for you. Testing and medication can be expensive and I unfortunately know too many people that would make that hard choice much too easy because of the costs of actually trying to find out what's wrong. Kudos to you for being a decent, caring pet owner that seems to treat his dog as more than just a commodity. I hope it doesn't have to come down to making that hard choice and they find out what's wrong!

 

[SCarolinaCy]

I will pass this story on about our Burmese cat. Many years ago, when we moved to SC, the cat climbed on the hood of our car, then unknown to us jumped up on the rolled up garage door. When we closed the garage door., the cat rode the door down and the head ended up on the inside of the garage, and the body on the outside. (Ouch!). The neighbor boy comes running over yelling, "your cat, your cat!". His hind legs had scratched the outside door paint until his body had gone limp. We pried the door open, yanked his head out,,,,,, Took him to the vet, brought him home and laid him in front of the refrigerator warm floor fan. I thought he was a goner.

An hour later we went to check on him and he had MOVED. He lived to be 19!.

 

[Vicarious]

Hope everything works out. It sounds like you have great veterinarian care - it can make all the difference in he world. I'm attaching a link to an article about dogs and seizures. It's pretty basic but it does have a link in the article for more info. It always makes me feel better to read up on possible variables when faced with difficult situations.

My elderly dog has some health issues and I would just like to remind people that just because a dog is no longer perfectly healthy does not mean they are no longer a perfect dog.
http://thebark.com/content/vet-advice-seizures-dogs-and-canine-epilepsy

 

[mganzeveld]

Our dog went through something very similar. Our local vet and a specialist spent months trying to figure out what it was. Turns out our dog doesn't process fats well and her body doesn't store it normally. The fats were actually crystalizing. These crystals were getting into her bloodstream and into places where it caused major problems. It went into her eyes and ruined her retinas. It was also getting into her brain and causing seizures. For months they thought it was a fungal infection and we spent over a thousand dollars on her meds that also made her sick. The solution was a low-fat diet. All dry food has to be 10% crude fat or lower and not contain chicken products. Don't give up! Ginger was a very sick dog having multiple seizures daily. The change in diet has given us the last 4 years and she is still going strong.

 

[Sparkplug]

Stories like these confirm why I bought pet insurance. They just paid for his neuter and chipping @ 75%. Better than our health insurance

 

[Cyclonepride]

Just got our pup back last night as she went 24 hours without a seizure. They put her on phenobarbital and that seems to be controlling it (we did not send her to ISU for a neurological exam due to the cost). Apparently that drug makes most dogs a little lethargic, but not our pup. She was pretty anxious all night and paced a lot. We put a doggie shirt on her, and that seemed to calm her just a bit, and when she finally crashed, she slept well all night. Thank you for all the support!

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Yay! Always good to have them back home with us.