Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
(Post 16435582)
This guy’s 11th adopt-aversary was yesterday.
He’s got arthritis in his left hip pretty bad and is gobbling down medicine (inside Turkey pepperoni) every day for it.
We blinked, and he got old.
Gonna be joining DJ on the feels train soon, I fear. Sucks.
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Well, we made it to 13 adopt-a-versaries. We will not make it to 14.
We let Scott the Dog go yesterday. It was awful and wonderful.
His arthritis was controlled pretty well for a long time... about 5 years... we maxed out his meds dose last year and then started trying a new treatment (librela - shot) that was expensive but highly effective in July. For July, August, and September, our little buddy's clock rolled back again. Lots of walks, lots of excitement, lots of him coming down to work in the basement with me.
And then, about three weeks ago, I noticed that he was just not moving around the same. I checked, and it had only been two weeks since his last librela injection.
My wife noticed it, too. We started watching him. Tried a week making sure he was getting the max dose of his medicine and OTC stuff he could have, to see if it helped. It didn't.
He was having a hard time walking, a hard time breathing (working really hard). Then we started noticing his alertness dropping, his energy. I made the calll to the vet on Monday, and we took him in yesterday.
Saying goodbye was hard. And awful in some ways. But gosh, when I think about how he loved us, how sweet he was and what a good comfort animal he was (he missed his calling as a trained comfort dog/therapy dog, for sure), and about the good life we gave him, it helps. My kids are a little wrecked... the girl just misses him and doesn't want him to go (she has taken a lot of pleasure in sliding above me in his pecking order, right behind her mom). The boy just is having a hard time dealing with the change.
We'll take some time and probably get on the puppy train again next year. My wife has a connection who has a trio of golden retrievers who have not been fixed, who has a litter coming up in January.
Cheers to Scott the Dog. It was my honor to be your human dad. Thanks for being our buddy.
