- We are going to continue to give him a nerve blocker pain medication just in case he is having some pain because I don't want him hurting and the medication is safe for long term use.
- The steroid treatment isn't doing anything so we are slowly starting to wean him off.
- Buster never got a lot of people food except when the kids threw food on the floor but these days, that rule is out the window (he is pretty happy about this change).
- After checking out blogs and websites on DM, a lot of owners get their dogs boots. I asked the vet about it and he said that they are a good idea for walks so that Buster stays active, but doesn't come back with bloody paws from scraping his paws on the sidewalk/pavement. I try to keep Buster on the grass as much as possible, but we do have to cross streets and driveways on our walks so this should help. The boots arrived yesterday and Izzy and I took Buster for a walk last night to see how he tolerated them. Previously he would have tried to get them off his feet, but did just fine (maybe he can't really feel them?).
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| Buster in his boots |
I was worried that not eating was a symptom of DM because Buster wasn't finishing his meals for a few days, but after calling the vet he said that Buster likely had an upset stomach from the steroids. Thankfully Buster is eating again and that shouldn't be an issue that we have to deal with.
I also reached out to Buster's breeder to let her know that he has DM since it is hereditary and his litter mates might have it as well. She let me know that Buster's father tested negative for the general DM marker before she bred him, but when a Bernese Mountain Dog-specific DM marker test became available (only a few years ago), the father did test positive for that. She never got the mother tested because by the time the new test came out, she was spayed (but she obviously has it). :-(
CP and I did have a hard conversation last night about when we would feel it was necessary to put Buster down. Right now he is acting like himself again mood-wise; it is just the physical symptoms that are present. From what I have been reading, generally about 6 months after diagnosis a dog is no longer able to walk. I think that this would be our breaking point because there are days where we leave Buster at home by himself while we are at work. If he can't stand up and walk to drink some water or change positions, that's not fair and not a good quality of life. The other breaking point would be when Buster becomes incontinent. *sigh*
Have any of you dealt with the loss of a pet? Izzy is not super close with Buster, but we are worried about how she is going to react when we do have to put him down.
5 comments:
I am just catching up and am so very sorry to hear the news about Buster. :( I think you are doing all the right things and having the conversations you have to have. My Mum had to put down a cat last year and it was one of those wait and see situations. She took the view better two weeks too early than a day too late, which I think is my view too. But it is such a hard line to draw.
E was almost five when we had to put down our cat, but it was extremely sudden and unexpected. We were very honest with him about why the cat had died, although we glossed over the fact that the vet had helped her to die until he was older (and we have never used the words put to sleep with him- always euthanized or given a medication to stop her heart because we couldn't make her get better and she was suffering).
We also paid the very sizeable fee to have our cat cremated individually and to have the ashes returned to us so that we could bury her ourselves. We felt this was important for E especially as he wasn't there when she died.
E cried a lot but also wanted to talk about his memories of her. And he frequently says that she's not alive now but she can still be in his stories that he tells and he can remember her. He told me the other week that he still misses her (this is now 16 months after she died).
We also made sure that E saw that we were sad too so he knew it was ok to grieve.
E coped well but he had been asking questions about death for a couple of years by then, so we were able to use the language we had already been using about how everything alive reaches the end of its lifetime at some point, and that helped. There is a great book called Lifetimes which I highly recommend.
Good luck. It is so hard, on so many levels.
We had our cat put down a few months ago. He was a very social cat and we'd had him since Quinn was born. We had a vet come to our house to do it. It turns out little kids are VERY matter of fact, and he was totally interested in the science of it (why are they shaving his leg? what does the medicine do? how long does it take to work?). For a couple of weeks after, he kept saying "Dexter died" in a very straightforward way. He mentioned it every day for a little while, but now almost never.
I've never commented on a blog before, but feel like our experience might be valuable. We recently lost our dog to was suspected DM, but most likely was idiopathic laryngeal paralysis. At the time our kids were 5 and 3. Towards the end, we'd talk about how our dog couldn't do the things he loved anymore. The day before we euthanized him, we had an I love you party and the kids fed him all the table food and snacks they wanted to and gave him lots of love. Our kids are pretty black and white about things, so we explained what would happen (we used the word injection rather than shot to avoid any immunization confusion). We had the kids give him a final hug that morning and took him to the vet while they were at school. That night we went out to dinner, toasted our dog and told stories about his life. Our 5 year old was pretty sad (as were we). The 3 year old was less emotional, but still 5 months later will tell us about dreams he had of the dog or ask how exactly he died. Neither of my kids were obsessed with the dog, but I think they enjoyed having him around. I hope this helps. I miss my pup still and it stinks when they leave us too soon.
We had to put our 12/13 yr old Golden (a rescue) down last September as her quality of life had deteriorated greatly and wasn't improved with treatment (difficulty walking, incontinence, wasn't interested in food). Our son was 4 at the time and we talked about how she was sick and the vet was going to try to help her over those last few weeks. We had her euthanized at home so we could be with her, and our son was not there. When he got home and she was gone, we explained that she went to the vet like we talked about (and he had said goodbye that morning) so they could try to help, but she was very sick and we should be prepared that she would probably die. A few days later we told him that she had indeed died. He volunteered that she was in dog heaven with Emmie, my in-laws dog that died earlier this year. He was sad, but not too bad, and seemed to process it over the next few weeks. Whenever he brought it up, we talked about it with him and validated his feelings. He has been asking for another dog and last month we brought home a labradoodle.
Basically, we personally did not feel comfortable at his age telling him that we made the decision to have her put down, and formed a white lie around that. That was our personal decision and I'm sure whatever you guys decide will be right for you.
I'm so sorry about Buster, especially to go so young. He has been well-loved by you guys.
We had to have our beloved mutt "Hombre" to sleep about five years ago. He was only seven years old and my best friend in the world even though Jackson was around by then and the dog didn't have my full attention like before. Anyway, he developed swollen lymph nodes and we took him to the vet right away. It turned out to be Lymphoma and it was bad. We took him home but could tell it was obstructing his breathing and we couldn't handle watching him in any kind of discomfort. We called the vet back and had him euthanized. I still miss him everyday and the kids know who he is from pictures and stories. I know I'll see him again someday though...
I'm not religious but I'll be praying for Buster and your family!!! Hang in there.
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