Sorry long post: My guy is 16 1/2. He was diagnosed with “moderate” hip arthritis and also IVDD 9 months ago. I had taken him to a doggie orthopedic specialist when his back legs started giving him trouble. She recommended Carprofen and Amantadine, both of which have seemed to help until recently. She also suggested Librela. However, after reading a bit about Librela I decided against it because of its not being recommended for IVDD or for dogs with neurological issues. His pain seemed to pretty well handled although he was panting at times and having anxiety at night. I knew that the nighttime anxiety could be dementia , and he also has a heart murmur which could be causing the panting when he anxious (said the vet). I would try to give him Tramadol and/or gabapentin at night, but it made his walking so much worse than I then tried not to. About 3 weeks ago his symptoms became worse and for his sake we are seriously considering euthanasia. He’s panting more, vocalizing more and now doing it in the daytime and even with his pain meds. I called the specialist and she said that I really should (and should have already) try the Librela. I told her my concerns and she didn’t say much. My primary vet also said if it’s between euthanasia and Librela, try the Librela. What do you guys think?

My 13-year old baby started having health issues about a year ago with irregular liver enzymes, which we later found out was due to gallbladder sludge. After treating with Denamarin and Ursodiol, his liver and gallbladder were back to normal, but his ultrasound and bloodwork showed Stage 1 kidney disease levels. At that time six months ago, they said just to keep an eye on him and recheck and that it could progress slowly. We rechecked yesterday and bloodwork and urine sample was consistent with Stage 3!! This is a devastating diagnosis. The vet said the progression is sometime rapid once they turn a certain age.

I don't know how much longer we have with him, but he is happy and acting normally other than he sleeps a bit more and is slower to react when we come home. We are going to start on the Hills Science Diet k/d food tonight. Any tips or stories of successful management (even though I know it isn't reversible) are appreciated.

I have a Miniature Schnauzer that turned 14 a few months back . We used to call her a “vacuum “ because she would eat anything and everything if given the chance . These days she straight up stopped eating , which is something i thought i would never witness in this lifetime. I tried to hand feed her and encourage her go eat but she just refuses and goes away. She’s mostly sleeping and barely reacting when touched or called . Its getting to the point where hearing her bark or seeing her wag her tail is surprising.

I genuinely don’t know what to do , I’m aware that this is a sign that she may be ready to go but the anticipatory grief is killing me ( crying as i’m writing this btw) . The thought that I’m just starting to live my life (early 20’s) and the end of hers is definitely coming soon is devastating me.

Is anyone else dealing with this kind of stuff right now? How do i manage to get over this once it’s over?

I'm struggling to know if it's time to euthanize my dog and could use some outside perspective/opinions.

My dog is 100lb Mastiff that will be 10 years old in December. He started losing weight early this year and having symptoms of doggie dementia. Wandering, panting, pacing all around the house. I took him to the vet in February for a senior bloodwork/urinalysis to see what we could find. He was diagnosed with kidney disease. He has protein losing nephropathy where essentially he was losing protein through his urine. We got him on 40mg of Telmisartan and he seems to be responding well to that. He has stopped losing weight. But the pacing and panting hasn't really changed.

His medications in addition to the telmisartan include 600mg Gabapentin BID for the pacing/panting to try keep him settled. 0.7mg thyro-tab BID for his hypothyroidism and he gets Purina ND kidney diet and fortiflora on his food.

Now I must say that we have a very sensitive boy. He gets very nervous at the vet and it's always a bit of an undertaking when we go. I brought him back after a couple weeks of telmisartan meds to do a recheck for his bloodwork to make sure it was safe for him to stay on the medication and check for anemia. It took 3 people including a doctor over 20 minutes to draw blood on him. (This was kinda hard for me to believe, as I used to work at a veterinary hospital and have drawn blood from him before. Dude's got big veins). Anyway, he was so stressed that on our way out he had diarrhea all over the front sidewalk. But not just diarrhea, bloody diarrhea. So. Much. Blood. It was like someone poured a glass full of blood on the sidewalk. I thought he was dying. It was traumatic for him, me, and my 4 year old daughter. The vet chalked it up to extreme stress and to let them know if it continued.

I took him home and his bleeding stopped and I gave him some probiotic for a few days and all seemed good. However, since then he's had intermittent bloody diarrhea. So for the past 5 months on again off again. Now the probiotic that helped it before has stopped working. I reached out to the vet. We tried about a week's worth of Metronidazole antibiotic and it did nothing. He's having accidents in the house and one was no poop just a puddle of blood. I called the vet again and recommended we do a longer course of antibiotics and Proviable. We did the 48 hr dosage of the proviable paste and are continuing the powder once daily. It's been 6 days and he's still just pooping blood. Every single time he goes it's red blood, tarry and very soft.

The vet said that we can do an ultrasound ($800 +/- sedation; upwards of $1000) but that still might not give us any answers and would have to do further digging. I'm really leery about bringing him back in for exploratory diagnostics when he gets so stressed. I'm feeling like he should have had some response by now to the antibiotics if they were going to help him. I really hate that he's just shitting blood everyday, panting and seeming understandably uncomfortable.

What are your opinions? Give the antibiotics a full month (another 3 weeks) while he keeps shitting blood everyday? Accept that this is the progression of his disease(s) and schedule In-Home Euthanasia?

Thanks for your feedback.

I have a Miniature Schnauzer who is 15 years and 8 months old. Shes a spoiled little thing who was never crate trained and runs the household. She’s in pretty good health overall, honestly. About 3 years ago she had a spell that we thought was a seizure but the vet thinks was just “old dog syndrome” or something like that but she’s bounced back well. The only lingering symptoms there is that she’s not at balanced as she was so she sometimes falls easily. She has hip pain that we give her chews and medicine for and you can tell it hurts her when she walks stiffly sometimes. Other times she’s like a puppy and she running around playful. She sounds like she has trouble breathing at night sometimes but when I bring her to the vet they say she sounds healthy overall. She also eats pretty well still and doesn’t really seem to have any problems there. She is deaf and has vision problems, but she can still see enough to not run into a lot of walls. The doctor did say that she has dementia.

She has terrible anxiety though and I’m in the process of selling my house. She’s lived with me, my mother, my brother, and both of their dogs so she’s gotten used to that way of life. Now that they’re all moved out, she doesn’t calm easily. She walks back and forth in my house from one door to the other and just does that for hours at a time. If I leave to go anywhere she panics though. She also doesn’t sit well in the car and shakes, likely from anxiety, any time we’re in a car. She’s always seemed to like them but she pants heavily and shakes so I don’t know if it’s excitement or nerves. Lately I’ve been bringing her places in the car and I worry it’s a lot for her. Also, when I bring her out anywhere she spins in circles. I’m not sure if she’s looking for me, overwhelmed, or just trying to investigate with her limited senses but she will do a 360, stop for about a second or two, and do another one. On repeat, constantly.

I don’t want to put her down prematurely since she doesn’t appear to be in that much pain and she’s still eating but with a move to a new place (I don’t have a house yet so I might be hopping city to city for a few months until I decide where to live) and her anxiety, I worry that it’s wrong of me to keep her around. It would be lots of new places and car rides and traveling and I don’t know what to do.

Obviously I don’t need medical advise in the sense of a diagnosis but I just don’t know how to weigh the “quality of life” conversation. My vet wasn’t a huge help last time I asked them.

Edited to add: she was house trained for about the first
10-12 years of her life but then she started using the bathroom in the house. Now she just decides to use the bathroom if she doesn’t feel like going out. I’d say that it’s about 60%/40% using the bathroom inside vs outside. She also wear a diaper to sleep in because she can’t always hold her bladder at night. If I move and take her with me, it’ll be a diaper 24/7 because I can’t have her using the bathroom at a rental or a friend’s.

Not the first post from her vacation, nor the last but the pictures from there make me happy and I hope they can make others smile, too.

It's so nice to see her roam free outdoors there, and rest when and where she wants. That's a luxury she doesn't have at home.

We just found out on Monday that my 11 year old, field Irish setter, Copper, has cancer all over his spleen. He has lost 15 pounds and is barely drinking and hasn't eaten anything in a few days. They offered to do a biopsy to confirm, but we can't afford treatment so getting the confirmation won't do much. The vet said the spleen was completely mottled looking on the ultrasound and she believes it's highly likely that it's some kind of lymphoma. They gave us Prednisone with the hopes that it would spur him to eat and drink more. He's had two doses now since yesterday, but still refuses to eat and only drinks a small amount. I scheduled a euthanasia appointment for tomorrow morning, but I worry I'm not giving him enough time for the Prednisone to work. I don't want him to suffer, but he is still getting up and going outside, sniffing things, trying to catch flies, etc. He mostly lays around sleeping, but he still has interest in watching the birds and saying hi to us when we come home. My biggest concern is that he has completely stopped eating and barely drinks anything. I just don't want to give up on him if there's a chance he'd get better. We know some people who had 2 more years with their pup after going through something similar. The Prednisone shrank their dogs tumors and gave him his appetite back. I hoped it would do the same for our boy, but I don't know how long to give it.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

We miss you and love you Tuna bear ❤️