When you have a pet, dog, cat whatever they become part of your family. It is our responsibility to love them, feed them, keep them healthy and free from pain and harm.
At the moment you realize your beloved pet is under the weather, a mired of thoughts run through your mind… did they eat something that didn’t sit well with them? Do they have a cold? Are they just getting old? Unfortunately they can describe their feelings, but just look at you helplessly with big sad eyes. It is your responsibility to take then to the vets, with hopes it is something simple that an antibiotic can correct. Not all experiences are that simple, ours was not….
Thursday all was good in the Dakota Enciso world, or so it seemed. She is 8 years old, maybe it seemed she was a little slower these days but she was still able to catch a rabbit just a few short months ago and place it ever so gingerly on the porch as a lovely token of her affection.
Friday, on the other hand was a not as good as Thursday. Dakota was just off. She seemed dazed but still came out side and socialized with us, not in her normal spunky manner, rather she was reserved and lost almost. I noticed her anti-social attitude immediately and gave her a little extra love and all of the kids were home and loving on her and even the girls slept on the couches to comfort her… because everyone needs a little extra TLC when you feel under the weather.
Saturday was worse, I woke to see Dakota listless and dazed. She sat awkwardly with her neck sticking out a little. Her belly looked weird too. So I reached around her to see if I could feel a lump, but felt nothing. Dakota was not the skinniest of dogs, she had a little extra roundness so I wasn’t initially off put by her belly. I took her outside and she went to the bathroom. No blood, good sign. She immediately wanted to go back inside, not like her at all. Once inside she sat next to the couch in the odd position again. I thought… since she dug a small hole just last week, maybe she ate a mole and her belly was bothering her. She sat there for 2 hours… 2 hours? Now, she is not the most active dog but she is not statue like either. The kids were playing outside and nothing, not her usual alert bark that she is famous for when a leaf blows past the window. I started to worry a little and the kids took extra time to love her and dote on her. She didn’t want to eat, but would drink. Okay, she is still drinking, but completely listless, just looked exhausted. Then as the night progressed, she started to breath differently. Almost as if she was taking deep breaths for each breath… again I checked her belly and she didn’t wince or make a sound, but I knew something was not right.
Sunday, the same, but she mustered up the energy to go on a brief walk with Maddy, brief. She drank a little, didn’t want to eat but mostly sat there listless and staring at nothing. I thought for a while she actually started to look better, but then she wouldn’t come in, she would step up onto the porch and just laid down on her side. Finally she jumped up and went inside when she thought we were all going to go in. After dinner we decided it was best to call the Vet. I know it is Sunday evening and we also know that we didn’t want to leave her in this condition while we went to work Monday… she was just not right.
We took her to the emergency animal hospital and she laid on Madison's lap for a while. I am sure this comforted her since she wasn't well traveled. Once at the hospital we told them everything we noticed over the course of the weekend. They doctor examined her, looked at her gums, which were unusually lighter than normal, felt her belly as I did, took her temperature, gave her a CT scan, took some blood and did some other tests and came back in pretty quickly to the room where they left us. Not the waiting room, the exam room. That bothered me. He came back and said her gums were white which is anemia. That when he did the CT scan it was alarming and he showed us pictures. Her spleen was not in the appropriate location and the black surrounding her spleen was blood, that she was bleeding into the abdominal cavity, that she had was called hemanangiosarcoma, and cancer has spread everywhere, blood was surrounding her liver, lungs and pericardium sac and a tumor ruptured causing her to bleed out internally. He gave us some options to treat the cancer.
1. Surgery to remove the spleen and drain the blood. This option yields about a 20% that she would make it through the surgery tonight. If she makes it, then a course of Chemo. Her survival time from was 2 weeks with surgery without Chemo. Survival of 2 months with surgery and Chemo.
2. Euthanasia, because he didn’t believe she would make it the night, definitely not more than 2 days in her current state.
I wasn’t really prepared for all of this… I knew she wasn’t right, but this was all very sudden and so final.
We discussed the options, 2 weeks with a limited quality of life? Two months with a limited quality of life? What kind of pain would she be in after recovery, if she even made it? What kind a pain is she in now? How much more pain do we want her to have to endure?
They brought her back to us, and we had some special time with her, kissed her, held her, pet her, apologized to her all while she labored to breath and refused to lay down cause she just couldn’t breathe with all the blood building up inside.
We made the very difficult decision to ease her pain forever. Allowing them to take the life of a loved one is not an easy task. You feel guilty. Helpless.
Once again, the doctor came in and sat with us. He explained what the procedure would be like, how she might act and how it would go. He sat down on the floor with us and took her left paw and administered 3 shots. One to flush, one a sedative and one to ease her pain forever….and she yelped ever so lightly and fell into my arms where I held her as she took her last breaths as we sobbed.
Seeing her laying there at peace was difficult, she was our spunky girl. But after seeing life leaving her for the last three days it was the humane and loving thing to do for our Dakota.
This was not the outcome we wanted for this past weekend. This was not the outcome we want for Dakota. But the very last thing we wanted for Dakota was to allow her to feel pain. Regardless of how much we miss her, her pain is gone and she is running around in digging up holes in heaven.
This evening Madison painted her paw imprint keepsake, we baked it and displayed it in the dining room so we can see our spunky Dakota everyday.
So tonight when you get ready for bed, kiss all your kids, even the four legged ones, because they are only with us for part of our lives, but we are their whole life
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