Lucy

Having an aging dog can be difficult. For me, Lucy is my first senior dog. Growing up, there were always circumstances that meant we never had a dog past age 2. In fact, I used to call my parents "chronic animal re-homers."

There were older dogs when I was a baby that passed away that I really have no memory of and then begins the count of all the dogs that never stayed with us past age 2;
1. Bruno: St. Bernard that got "too big" and was given to a friend of my dad's were he happily lived out his days.
2. Mandy: St. Poodle that at age 2 got GDV (bloat) and passed away.
3. Missy: mini poodle that we couldn't keep when my parents divorced and we moved to a non-pet apartment.
4. Mariah: St. Poodle that stayed with my ex-step-dad when we left his place.
5. Numerous rescue/foster dogs that have been in and out.
7. Pound dogs that ended up getting re-homed to my uncles or relatives who fell in love with them and my mom couldn't say no for some reason on them taking OUR dog(s) home.

And so that brings me to Lucy......a Border Collie that I did not want and was given as a birthday gift. Our first 9 months together were rocky. I had no idea how to raise a puppy and as a highschooler, really didn't have a whole lot of interest. So she ruined my carpet in my room, ate lots of my stuff and drove me crazy. It wasn't until I got a job at a petstore that some people knocked some sense into me, I got in touch with a wonderful trainer who later became my mentor and the rest is history.

Fast forward to now. Lucy is almost 9 years old. She has had a wonderful life full of agility, flyball, sheep herding, search and rescue work, going to work with me, going on vacations, swimming, hiking, going to the dog park etc. She gets the highest quality food, bones, treats and toys and has been a fantastic dog. However, she has had her share of bad luck.

Lucy had numerous UTI's as a young dog, tore a ligament playing ball with me, knocked her sacrum out of alignment I assume from falling off agility equipment, has had two seizures, several emergency vet visits, pneumonia, the normal bouts of diarrhea and vomiting from time to time and now, I am wondering if our journey together is coming to an end.

In the past 7 or so months (really since we moved here), Lucy has had diarrhea and vomiting on and off. I assumed it was the typical bone that didn't agree with her or maybe she ate some nasty grass outside. Perhaps she gobbled her food down to fast. She was normal in every other aspect. Running, playing, eating, drinking. Then we had a month or so of regurgitation issues with her kibble. Every time I would feed her dry food it would come right back up. So with a little experimentation and thumbs up from the vet, we found that moistening her dry food before hand in a tuperware container that lives in the fridge, coupled with elevating her food, fixed the problem completely.

Then on Friday, July 1st, something happened that has never happened before. Lucy didn't want to eat. She regurgitated her pre-moistened food from dinner in the early morning hours and when it came time for breakfast, she turned up her nose. I offered her many favorites: canned, yogurt, deli meat, sausage, raw dog food and still, she walked away. As the day progressed I noticed that she was not going to the water dish at all. Between the two dogs, I normally fill the dish several times per day, and Friday was a hot day, so this was also unusual. I don't normally panic about doggie ailments since they always seem to pull out of things on their own, but this really bugged me, especially with a three day weekend coming up. So I took her into the vet.

At the vet she received IV fluids, a shot for her nausea as by now she had thrown up bile 4 times and could not keep anything down (I did eventually get her to eat a small amount of turkey before going to the vet), and we got blood work done.

Over the weekend things got a little better. She was no longer vomiting and I was able to get her to eat some canned food if I held it up to her. I also was able to get her to drink some chicken broth diluted with water.

Tuesday I got the blood results and they were a bit inconclusive minus the fact that her platelets are really low. That coupled with her other symptoms point to gastrointestinal lymphoma. Of course, the vet can't "diagnosis" that without doing further testing, but she did tell me that lymphoma, Addison's disease or IBD were her top three suspects. The blood work ruled out the other two. I don't know if she was trying to sell me false hope because she kept saying it could be a rare a-typical Addison's disease that won't show in the blood work, but will in an ultrasound.

So now it is Wednesday. In a way, she has declined. I am now having to spoon feed her the canned food and she is being very picky about what flavor she wants. She no longer is taking that much broth in. But here is the hard to understand part, the part that makes me feel like "my dog isn't sick, she will be fine." She is still happy. She wants cuddles and pets, goes outside to potty, hasn't vomited and will even play a little with her toys with me. She won't play with Lex and she is just laying around more than usual. I think this is the hardest part for me. I know that BC's and my dog in general, is very stoic. She doesn't like to let on she is sick. She will do things simply because I want her to. I bet if I took her to the park right now, she would run and fetch a ball. This fact makes it extremely difficult to judge that all so important "quality of life" factor.

The next step diagnostically, is to get an ultrasound to look for any masses or swollen adrenal glands (Addison's disease). The ultrasound is not cheap and if it is cancer, the prognosis is very bleak even with treatment. Without treatment, most dogs with lymphoma die or are euthanized within 3 weeks of the fateful day when they stop eating/drinking. With treatment, lymphoma can go into remission, but remission only lasts 3-12 months. The treatment is a weekly chemo dose for 25 weeks at the cost of $300 per dose.

I have decided to take things one day at a time. I love my dog dearly, but I can't justify spending that much money on getting a few more months with her (IF she has cancer). My plan is to keep doing what I am doing. Feed her, try to get fluids in her, let her do what she wants to do. If in 3 weeks from now, she is still in the same place as she is today, then I will get the ultrasound because by then, it is very unlikely to be lymphoma due to the survival rate. If in a few weeks she has gone more down hill, I might have to make that awful decision that every pet owner dreads and let her go peacefully.

It helps me so much to be able to write about this. To be concrete in my decision and define what I am looking for as far as when to say good-bye. I always thought that when it came time to put a dog to sleep that the dog would be obviously suffering, unable to get up, soiling itself and things along that line. If Lucy keeps up with what she is doing now, it isn't so black and white.