Our firstborn gave us quite a scare a couple weeks ago! He stayed outside all night and it was cold and damp weather. The next morning Murray went to look for him and saw him struggling to stand up. Murphy took a few steps towards him and then collapsed in a heap and couldn't get up. Murray feared he'd had a stroke! He brought him into the house and covered him with blankets to try and warm him up and stop the tremors and shivers coursing through Murphy's body. Other than that, Murphy was barely moving. Not sure what to do, we kept a close eye on him the rest of the day and tried to get him to drink or eat to no avail.We had to carry him outside and hold him up to take care of bathroom duties.
The next day was Monday and Murray got the earliest appointment he could and it was a long wait til 3pm. In the meantime I had to leave to pick the girls up from school, go to violin and then dance class and could not be at the appointment. I was terrified Murray would be coming home solo and cried off and on all day as I waited anxiously for news. Before the appointment time, Murphy did some business in the backyard so I collected a sample for Murray to take with him in case they needed it.
As it turned out, this helped the vet figure things out fairly quickly. The sample was full of blood which meant internal bleeding. His arthritis meds had the "possible" side effect for stomach ulcers that so we stopped the arthritis meds and started on antacids and stomach lining repair.
There was no more evidence of bleeding but his energy was non existent and so was his appetite. He had lost almost 15 pounds since he'd been to the vet in the spring for his needles. The vet urged us to get food into him, no matter what we had to do as he was severely anemic. A Labrador that won't play or eat is pretty much unheard of so we knew he was very very sick. He didn't even lift his head to look at us when we came near him. I had to put food in the blender and grind it to mush. We would sit on the floor with his head in our lap and shoot the mix down his throat with a syringe to trigger his swallowing reflex. It was the only way to get him to eat or drink or down those pills. He would try to pull away from us to avoid the feedings. He hated it. We hated it. We watched and waited and as you can imagine, I cried and worried constantly. He wouldn't even nibble his treats most days. A Dentabone sat untouched on the floor beside him for several days.
After a few more days, he started drinking out of his water bowl on his own if we placed it between his paws. He had to gaze at it for a few minutes before seeming to realize what it was and take a few tentative laps in the air until he could actually find the water in the bowl.
We could barely stand to see him like that but at the same time we couldn't stand the thought of making any other decision. We took every little improvement as reason to wait it out a bit longer. A few days after he started drinking on his own, I was hand feeding him some kitty treats and he was gobbling them up. I got some dog food Mum had sent for him to try that was a little smaller than his own. If I laced it with a generous portion of those kitty treats, he continued to eat. I mixed that together, threw in a little of his wet food and he gobbled it down! The excitement at seeing him eat of his own volition was huge! Maybe, just MAYBE this wasn't as hopeless as we'd thought!
I continued to put savory mixes together, generously throwing in bacon, rice, sausage etc with the food and he continued to eat. He got colour back in his pale gums. He now walks in and out, up and down the stairs, up and onto the couches and wants to go for walks in the mornings after the kids get on the bus.
He still seems a bit weak but not nearly as close to death's door as he seemed those first few days. He'll be 13 next month so we realize his time is limited but we are overjoyed that for now, he's still with us!
