We lost our navigator, co-pilot, and companion on May 5th. Duallie had traveled with us for the last 10 ½ years, everywhere we went, so she saw what we saw.
Come on lets go.
You’re going the right way
We had left for Florida at the end of March. Plans were for 4 weeks at Thousand Trails Orlando, followed by 10 days at Fort Wilderness. Everything was good and a trip to the vet just prior to leaving confirmed she was in good health. I did have a little bit of a concern as when she would squat, her left leg would shake like a small tremor. I mentioned this to the vet, but he didn’t think this was a problem, in fact he thought she was in great health for her age. I had been seeing this shaking for some time but didn’t appear to get worse.
While we were at TTO, all she wanted to do was walk. Every time we went out, she would head for the road and off we would go. About 2 weeks into the trip when she would get up to get a drink, she started to favor that left leg a little but when she walked there was no problem.
Four or five years ago we bought a ramp to get her in and out of the truck as she was getting to much for me to help lift her into the truck and didn’t like all of her weight being transferred to her joints when she would jump from the back seat area. At the time, she was about 130 Lbs. Once we bought the trailer, she would climb the steps but would slip every so often due to hair on her pads. With the ramp she would just fly up and down.
At the start of the 3rd week, she was really starting to favor the left leg while in the trailer. As we were from out of town, we took her to an Animal Hospital. Wow what a place, very nice place, would take a pet there anytime. Once we got to see the vet, 5 hrs later, not first in, but the worst in. The vet determined that that she had some arthritis around her spine, gave us a Muscle relaxant for 10 days. Then said if it didn’t get better to came back and they would take some X-ray. During this time she was also having problems getting up from the floor and climbing the steps up to the bedroom, but she figured it out.
About the middle of our 4th week, she wasn‘t getting better so we decided to head home to see our vet, we would take a slower ride home to give her time to relax. By the time we left she was really starting to favor the left leg but could still do the ramp with a little momentum to start.
The 4th night out we stopped at a Love’s Rest Stop, she was able to get around but was having some difficulty walking as the areas around the trailer was pea gravel with grass in the outer areas. We got up the next morning about 5:30, thought it was a good time to take her out. She was not able to get up off the floor. I was able to get her up so she took a drink. We got her to the door. I put on her muzzle, she could get ugly at times and didn’t like vets.
At this time, we weren’t sure what we were going to do. I got her down the ramp, but it wasn’t pretty. She came down on her front paws, but slid down on her butt. Got her up and walked to the grass where she started to pee. She went down and wouldn’t/couldn’t get up. We sat with her for about a half hour and decided that if we could get her into the truck we would head for home.
I was able to get her and into the truck. We hooked up and headed home. It was less than a 4 hr. drive. Along the way we called our vet, about our problem, and that we would be passing right by in about 4 hrs. They said the best they could do for us was a 2 P.M. appointment, but if we wanted, we could go to an animal hospital. Nice response from a vet that we had been going to for 20 yrs. They had gone from a Family Vet to a Corporate Vet.
We contacted an animal hospital close to home. They said to bring her in and they would meet us at the truck, with a gurney, and take care of everything. We quickly ran home dropped the trailer and took her in. They got her onto the gurney and took her back to be examined and ushered us into an examining room. A tech came in and said they wanted to take x-rays and if we wanted to, we could go home and that they would call. About an hour later they called.
We met with the doctor who told us that she had N Stage Osteoarthritis in both hips and also fractures in both hip area. We were told that they could do hip replacements and all but the pain and recovery would be worse than what she is having now.
As hard as it was and we would do anything, we couldn’t handle her with the recovery and didn’t want to see her suffer. We decided to put her down. It was the hardest thing we have ever done as everything in front of the hips was in perfect condition, if only the hips hadn’t given out because the heart was still there.
Sorry for the long post but I think I needed to get this off my chest. Even now this was hard to type.
Thanks,
Bob
