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My wife's 14 year old pomeranian has had kidney problems for a long time, lately she had a reduced appetite and tried to hide from us, and the day before yesterday she had a seizure and fell down some stairs. Since then she's been really wobbly, barely able to walk (and walking in circles), and generally miserable. Occasionally she will hyperventilate and gets hot, i put an ice bag against her back to help her cool down again. Yesterday she had another severe seizure, snapping at the air and losing consciousness, after which she woke up again slowly and screamed and whined for about an hour, she only calmed down when we took her to the park in the middle of the night to get fresh air. I honestly think the best option by now would be euthanasia since she can't even walk around and do general dog stuff anymore and seems really miserable. Problem is that she's my wife's dog, and my wife lives with her grandma, so I have both of them to contend with. My wife's sort of in denial, keeping hope up that she'll recover when it's pretty obvious that the dog's had some kind of brain damage and probably is blind. Her grandma, on the other hand, is extremely hard nosed about it, saying we shouldn't go to the vet because it's the end of her life anyway and treatment would only bother her (she also thinks it will "bother the vet", I guess that's a Japanese thing...). Grandma refuses to let me pay for her treatment either, the idea seems to piss her off for some reason, probably because she'd feel the obligation to compensate me for it financially. What can I do here? Is there any thing, other than the ice bag, that can help her with pain and seizures so she doesn't suffer so much? What about coated aspirin, keeping in mind that she has kidney problems already, and weighs only about 4 kg? Is there any way to prevent it? And assuming it's her failing kidneys that are causing the seizures, is there any kind of diet I can put her on that will reduce them somehow? I'm occasionally giving her ORS as well but I'm not sure if that's really good for her either...
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Apr 17, 2015 01:28
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:34 |
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Unfortunately no matter what the initial cause of the seizures is/was, once she starts having seizures and they're this frequent (could be the kidney failure, could be something else entirely), there's nothing you can do to stop them from occurring again except anti-epileptic drugs. And she seems neurologically inappropriate between the seizures as well from what you're saying so I don't think there's going to be anything you can practically do for her without intervention from a veterinarian.
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Apr 17, 2015 11:44
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You're probably going to have to be the "bad guy" in this situation, but you'll be doing the right thing for the dog. Talk to your wife and take her dog to the vet together. She probably needs to hear it from the vet herself. Grandma's logic sounds like it comes from an older line of thinking where any kind of vet care is a waste of money once animals get old so it's better to just wait for them to die on their own.
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Apr 17, 2015 13:31
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This might sound like DRUGS people talking or someone being really flippant, but is there any way you can get hold of an overdose level of pain killers and just let the doggy slip quietly away in the night? A nice vet might even help you, if you explained it. You would be ending her suffering and nobody would ever know. Personally, I wouldn't be able to do it until it was very OBVIOUSLY the end, but it seems like you're close. There would be no vet bills and no pissed off grandma... It would depend on if you feel like having that type of responsibility. I can't really think of a better way to go than a blanket of opiates.. as long as you're sure there is no other choice. I mean, we do this to our own relatives out of respect.
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Apr 20, 2015 22:10
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DoggPickle posted:This might sound like DRUGS people talking or someone being really flippant, but is there any way you can get hold of an overdose level of pain killers and just let the doggy slip quietly away in the night? A nice vet might even help you, if you explained it. You would be ending her suffering and nobody would ever know. Personally, I wouldn't be able to do it until it was very OBVIOUSLY the end, but it seems like you're close. There would be no vet bills and no pissed off grandma... It would depend on if you feel like having that type of responsibility. A nice vet will not dispense controlled drugs to an unlicensed person with the intent to kill another person's dog. You're thinking of the other type of vet, a sociopath with no regard for their license.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:17
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She already died, actually grandma did come around but the vet said that the seizures likely caused her no pain anyway, she did whine a lot which I assumed was pain but according to the vet she was just asking for attention. She died peacefully last night.
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Apr 21, 2015 08:25
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If it's any consolation to you, from the woman I know who has seizures regularly (if she is without her meds) she tells me they aren't painful. Scary and embarassing, certainly. But she states that she doesn't really remember anything and there doesn't seem to be any lingering pain. The animals at the clinic I work at don't seem super phased after suffering a seizure (even in-clinic) and just need some rest. I'm sure the vet wasn't just lying to you to make you feel better, if that's what you are concerned about. I wish the best for your family, this is never an easy thing.
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Apr 21, 2015 14:54
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Thanks everybody. It sucks rear end and I'm walking around dumb and sad and unable to even like other dogs I see. I'm looking at websites now to find a similar white pomeranian, even though i know that sort of thing is a bad idea. Death is gay.
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Apr 22, 2015 04:43
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 Don't start trying to find another dog straight away. You can't force yourself into it. You'll know when it's time!
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Apr 23, 2015 08:30
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Slugworth posted:A nice vet will not dispense controlled drugs to an unlicensed person with the intent to kill another person's dog. You're thinking of the other type of vet, a sociopath with no regard for their license. I was thinking more of a medical professional with a modicum of human empathy, but if rules help you sleep you sleep at night... On a random note, I'm actually one of those people with seizures. Pretty much everything the others said is right. It's scary and embarrassing (though I doubt dogs can feel shame exactly like us), but it's basically a blackout. The physical symptoms after are like, the energy was drained from your body, and you may have some muscle aches, but all that is based on the severity of the event. If you had a small one in the night, you might wake up somewhere weird (or not) but you know that it happened because your legs hurt a little or your arms feel weak (and it's hard to describe, but you know it's not just because you slept funny or whatever) I can't imagine that it's painful or traumatizing for a doggie. At least this is essentially my experience (+ 1 friend). I hope that gives you happy thoughts about your poor dog 
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Apr 23, 2015 21:35
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DoggPickle posted:I was thinking more of a medical professional with a modicum of human empathy, but if rules help you sleep you sleep at night... As a vet I can say it'd actually be pretty tough to do something like this under the radar as we don't typically dispense opioids other than Tramadol or buprenorphine (or hydrocodone I guess, but I don't really think of it that way) for use at home so we'd have to write it to an outside pharmacy and that'd likely raise some eyebrows. We don't have to do things like that in veterinary medicine because we have the option of actual euthanasia. And that's at the actual owner of the dog's discretion, unfortunately.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:52
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DoggPickle posted:I was thinking more of a medical professional with a modicum of human empathy, but if rules help you sleep you sleep at night... My post was snarkier than it needed to be, so I apologize. That said, it's more than rules - He specifically said his wife, the owner, was holding out hope for recovery. Euthanizing an animal that doesn't belong to him isn't empathy. Or at the least, it's misplaced empathy. In any case, I feel like a heel derailing this type of thread, so my apologies. OP, my condolences. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Apr 25, 2015 |
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Apr 25, 2015 04:04
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:34 |
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Slugworth posted:My post was snarkier than it needed to be, so I apologize. That said, it's more than rules - He specifically said his wife, the owner, was holding out hope for recovery. Euthanizing an animal that doesn't belong to him isn't empathy. Or at the least, it's misplaced empathy. It was my bad too. The actual "owner" of the dog being kind of a blurry thing to distinguish - I was thinking it was technically his partner's dog (or something) and people take being married in different ways :/ I'm not being snarky either, and I didn't mean to derail it either. I have a really old 15 pound dog who randomly hurts her back, who gets tramadol that I have to cut into 1/4ths, and I get like 30 full pills of those at a time. I haven't used the whole 30 in 5 years, not even remotely. I guess I was thinking of smaller dogs. <-- for the vet. Thank you for your honest reply about prescriptions etc. My first dog, a fox terrier (she was much older than me) lived to be freaking 18, and that was 25+ years ago and I still remember the end. My dad had to give her a bath three times a day because the entire back end wasn't working. I think I might have my Jack Russel's end times on my brain, and I don't want to watch that happen again. Without getting into specifics or getting too emo (lol this is like impossible!) I've been the one with eye dropper of liquid morphine for two human beings, and I don't really see how this is any different/worse whatever! On a lighter note!!! Don't kill someone else's dog! Just take the express train right to hell 
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May 2, 2015 00:24
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