Help me. They want me to put him down.

[Raya]

I’m not sure who to come to. I was advised to put my 2 year old german shepherd husky mix to sleep two nights ago by an overnight ER vet. he had shown no symptoms of IHMA in the last three weeks while he was at his extensive training camp- but on the last day of his training camp, they told me he had not eaten dinner the previous night, or breakfast that morning. His RBCs were at 13%. They advised me to put him to sleep, and that he would not make it in the next twelve hours. They gave him a steroid injection and sent me home with him, told me to come back in the morning to ask the day doctor’s opinion of our situation. I do not have money for aggressive treatment. I almost lost him that next morning, as he almost put himself into a coma, induced by exhaustion. We took him back to the vets office, and talked to doctors. I opened up a care credit line of which I was only allowed $500. They suggested I try at least one transfusion, and gave it to me at $620 instead of the initial estimate of $1200. bare bones, no fluids or anything running for him. I found another credit card to put the remaining total on. The transfusion went okay, but his body immediately started attacking all of the new RBCs. Last test we received, his count was up to 16%. They sent us home with Prednisone/20mg per day, Atopica (cyclosporine) 100mg per day, and Omeprazole 10mg per day.

I am struggling to find hope. My heart and world are shattered. If this is not the right place to do this, I am so sorry, but I have no idea what to do. I did not know this disease existed until I was told my baby was dying from it. He is all I have.

If you have any suggestions or advice, it is greatly appreciated. I had to force feed him blended wet food by hand this morning before giving him his first set of meds, he willingly ate some sweet potato purée, and is continuing to drink water. I put some pedialyte in the water every time I refill his bowl.

I am deathly afraid that he will not make it til Friday when we are supposed to go back and get a new blood test done. I am also horrified that his count will be lower than before.

I’m sorry if I’ve overloaded you with information.. I am just beyond helpless at this point. I feel like I am watching my whole life die right in front of me. It came for him so quickly.

Raya

[Vally]

Hi Raya, I’m so very sorry you’re here because I know how shattered you are right now. Yes, this is the right place. We’ve all been there.

I’d like to promise it’s not hopeless but I can’t, but you’re doing everything right to give your boy the best chance and it’s up to his body. From what I’ve seen, younger dogs seem to do better, so keep that hope with you. If my message suddenly stops, it’s because I’m at work right now (Sydney Australia) but I get home early and I’ll write again if that happens.

What does your boy (what’s his name??) weigh? The drugs are the right drugs to fight this disease – I just want to be sure of the dosage. Can you send a copy of the blood test results through on the Urgent Advice at the top or here’s the link.
https://www.secondchanceaihadogs.com/urgent-advice/

If you don’t have a copy, ask for them. They are yours. Patrice is a wiz at explaining them and is good at seeing what’s happening and can explain it to you.

The drugs are cheaper if you get a prescription for them and buy them at something like Cosco, or ring around and ask. Certainly, the Atopica is expensive and you’ll get a better price.

Ask anything, and don’t apologise for anything – we all understand.

Vally

[Patrice]

Raya,
I am sorry to read about your GSD. This sounds very frightening for you.

The details leading up to this are interesting and seem to be related to the suddenness of his condition. If you can detail this for me I would like to read it.

Sometimes in cases like this are directly related to exposure to something, for instance a tick bite, snake bite, bad food that may have spoiled, there are many things like this.

Please don’t feel helpless or hopeless. I want to give you some education about this so you can make a decision based on knowledge not emotions.

This vet probably has most likely experienced other owners who didn’t have much funds and probably wanted to help them by avoiding a prolonged treatment.

We are here to help those owners who don’t like this choice, who honor their dog’s will to live. This site is named after Chance, I chose to honor his very strong desire to live, despite his extremely bad prognosis. He did survive.

You are using the correct meds and Vally will help you figure out if you are giving the correct doses.

I have one question now, I specifically want to know if the vet “felt” his spleen carefully and did he say anything about it? GSD’S are somewhat prone to conditions of the spleen that could cause internal bleeding. I want to make sure that has been ruled out.

Please send me those lab results I really want to see them.

I will be thinking about him tonight.
My best Patrice

[Raya]

I am unsure of his lab results, but I will contact the vet hospital and see. Anakin is now 50lbs.. He had lost almost a pound per week, starting the week I dropped him off for his training camp (4 weeks ago now). I hadn’t really thought of anything getting to him too much at camp, but it’s in Nipomo, CA, where I would think there would be a lot of ticks, especially for this time of year. A snake bite could also be something that happens this time of year, but I would have hoped they’d have checked him for that first thing when he got to the vet hospital.

Thank you for giving me a space to talk about this and understanding me. I appreciate this. I stumbled upon this site while trying to research how to help him. I was about to purchase the bio algae concentrates out of panic and needing something to help him, and I found your forum on it advising not to and why. Thank you for that. I’ll get back to you with the lab results.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Vally.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Vally.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Vally.

[Patrice]

Raya,
If you go back to the top level of the forum you will see a recent topic written by an owner whose dog was bitten by a rattlesnake. You will find it interesting, it is similar. I’m not saying that is what happened but that just about anything could have happen while he was out of your sight. You, or anyone else, could miss whatever happened to him during that time. I think it is critical that you talk to the manager at this camp, not to blame, but to gather important information about the kinds of things he could have been exposed to at this camp. I am sure they know whether there are risks of ticks, snakes or even spiders there. Some bites introduce a toxin that leads to severe internal bleeding. It may be past the point to directly treat for whatever injured him, but knowing what it was could influence how this treatment proceeds going forward.

Let’s also think about other things like food that has gone bad, exposure to poisonous plants, toxic chemicals for grounds keepers like pesticides. Honestly there are just so many things could have been the trigger.

I truly believe it would be premature to consider euthanasia without digging further.

He may feel crummy because he has suffered “something ” but now he feels badly too because of the side effects of the prednisone. And anemia makes them feel weak.

So in essence, this could be something other than AIHA or INHA. Make sense?

I really need to see the CBC and chem screen of the first and the most recent test. I want to follow the breadcrumbs back to see if there is a particular pattern. I also am curious about the platelets.

When something happens suddenly like this, we may see a healthy dog that suddenly became ill. That is important to the treatment because a healthy dog can survive the treatments better.

This can be a very dynamic time with many changes happening quickly, it’s important you recognize what needs immediate treatment and what is just normal side effects. Being calm will improve your relationship with the vets at the clinic. Talk slowly and politely, ask a few questions about the treatment etc. Avoid panicking and becoming emotional. Act as though you are an equal partner in his treatment (you are)

Ask me questions.
My best Patrice

[Raya]

I contacted the vet hospital right now, it’s about 5am so I’m not sure that the vet’s office will be sending his tests over right away, but they are a 24 hour emergency vet so I could imagine at least by the later morning they can send them over. If I’m concerned his prednisone dosage is too low, should I just call them and ask them about it/ask if we can up the dosage? I’m starting to feel like maybe the overnight doctor wasn’t the most thorough in his checks with Ani. From what I’m gathering, he likes to tell people to just put their animals to sleep because he’s just a “grumpy 100 year old man, and kind of a dick” according to one of the vet techs who was helping us before his transfusion on Monday. I suppose he’s just very old school about things, and there’s a reason he isn’t a day doctor. Also, I’m not sure how to attach a photo of my Ani- but that dog up top in my other post, definitely not mine. Not sure how that happened. My boy is a husky german shep, mostly looking like a husky but with shepherd ears and body. I’ll contact the training camp with questions, I know they were deeply concerned about him, as this extreme situation popped up while he was in their care for a long period of time. Thank you so much. I’ll be back with info.

[Patrice]

Raya,

How is Ani this morning? Does the he seem to be feeling a little better? Did he eat? Make sure to he is getting enough water, prednisone will make him dehydrated and also will make him pee often and a lot! Some owners have luck with syringing water into the inside cheek. You can get a baby med syringe at most pharmacies, no needle!

I’m not going to advise you to change any dosages until I look at the CBC.

Yes, we’ve heard many owners describe situations like this with vets. That is one reason I want you to think about this more clearly when we have more information. Sometimes we even recommend owners find another vet clinic for a second opinion.

These early days are tricky, when there is not enough diagnostic information and an owners dog is in critical condition. Expecting someone to start looking for another clinic is challenging.

We’ve helped owners with extremely ill dogs that have survived. So I will never say it is not possible to recover. Part of the recovery is the dog’s body working hard to survive. We can never guess how well they will do that!

I am positive that every vet got into veterinary science so they could help animals. Years of pressures from owners can wear them down. Now the Internet competes as owners read all kinds of stuff and bring that to the vet. Not everything is accurate and some things can be harmful. I try to research everything carefully for our site so owners can get correct information.

So perhaps you can see another vet at the clinic? If not I will suggest that you consider doing an owner consultation with Dr Jean Dodds. We have links to her site and she helps many owners who need a second opinion. Both Vally and I were helped and our dogs survived.

When you have the paperwork send it via the Urgent Advice page on our site.

Vally told me last night she had trouble with putting the photo up but could not figure out what was wrong. We will fix this, it wasn’t done on purpose!
My best Patrice

[Raya]

I’m unable to upload the records onto the urgent advice page. I think it’s because there are so many pages, or maybe the file is too big. Is there any other way I can send them to you?

Also, the vet hospital we went to is about 40 minutes away from our home. We usually go to a vet that’s closer to us here in town, but his trainers suggested we continue going back to them because they’re supposed to be the best in the area. We do love his regular vet though, and I’d be willing to see what they have to say.

Anakin is drinking tons of water, and peeing frequently. I fed him almost a half a can of wet blended food (by force) last night. What he eats willingly is sweet potato baby food, if I put it on my finger and have him lick it off. He still seems very weak. I’m about to try and feed him again and give him his medications.

Let me know if there’s any other way I can get the records over to you. I would be willing to talk to anyone who has helped your dogs survive this.