Thoughts And Prayers For Duke, Please!

[Guest LazyBlaze]

Oh no. I'm so very sorry. Duke and you all fought so hard. You could not have done any more for your boy and he knew you were fighting with him. You have my deepest condolences.

[MP_the4pack]

[Guest MnMDogs]

I'm so sorry.

[Neighsayer]

I'm so sorry! How sad! Hugs!

[Guest alannamac]

I am so sorry. I was hoping this would turn around. You are not alone in your pain. My boy was only 5 and passed in similar conditions only a month ago. We do what we can and know that these things were going to happen with or without us. Thank heavens Duke had you and your love for the time he was alive. You said it yourself....he was a happy boy. When the grief subsides a little, focus on that....what a happy guy he was. You all did your job wonderfully as parents.

My sympathies.

[Guest OPointyDog]

I am so sorry to hear your beautiful boy had to go. Hugs to you and to all who knew and loved him.

[greytpups]

I am so sorry to hear this. All of you fought so hard, you gave him all you could.

[Beachbum1]

I am so very sorry

[macoduck]

I will add Duke's name to the list of Bridge Angels for July. He is not alone.

[KF_in_Georgia]

I'm so sorry you've lost your good boy.

[tbhounds]

I'm so sorry--you did everything you possibly could for your boy. I'm sorry it hurts so much. My thoughts are with you <3

[3greytjoys]

Through tears, my heart truly goes out to you and your family. I am so sorry Duke was not able to recover. It sounds like his caring veterinary team did everything they could for him. I imagine he knew how fortunate he was to have been able to spend his retirement as a member of your loving and caring family. I wish it had been longer.

 

Godspeed sweet Duke.

 

[Houndtime]

I just logged on to see how Duke was doing today. I am so sad and sorry to read that he has passed.

[Fiona3]

I am so terribly sorry that you have lost Duke. What a brave and beautiful boy. He clearly knew how much he was loved. My heart goes out to your family.

[DesiRayMom]

What a brave fight.....for all of you. I'm so very sorry.

[galgrey]

Oh no! I was so hoping he would rally. My heart goes out to all of you. I know yours are broken.

[45MPHK9]

I'm so sorry.

[EllenEveBaz]

We are all grieving with you.

[Victor]

Thank you all for your condolences. We still can't believe that Duke is no longer with us. As I am sure is the case with many of you, our dogs are our children. We adopted Lana in January 2010 when she was 4 years old and then Duke in July 2010 when he was 3.5. After Lana lost her battle to osteosarcoma in January 2014, we were devastated. Now with Duke gone, the pain is almost too much to bear. We're trying to stay strong for Joy, though. (We adopted Joy in March. She's 5 days younger than Duke. Duke was so happy to have a "younger" sister! He loved showing her around, and she followed him everywhere. She would even try to lie next to him on his bed, although Duke wasn't too keen about that!)

I wanted to post something about the time leading up to Duke's illness, in case it's of help to anyone else. I'll also post the results of Duke's autopsy when we receive the report.

From what I've read, portal vein thrombosis was once thought to be rare in dogs, but it's being recognized more often now. You can read more about it here:

http://sites.tufts.edu/progressnotes/2011/09/current-concepts-4/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22369249/

Usually there is some underlying condition that leads to the development of a clot. Unfortunately, there are many possible causes, even just being too sedentary. (We still don't know why Duke developed a clot, but maybe the autopsy will shed some light on this.) If the clot is detected before it gets too big it can be treated on an outpatient basis with anticoagulant therapy such as warfarin. Unfortunately, clots in the portal vein are often not detected until the dog is in critical condition. This was this case for Duke.

In retrospect, there are three things I wish I'd paid more attention to prior to the day Duke became obviously ill:

(1) The first was a gradual behavioral change. Over the past few months Duke had started going outside less often. Whereas he used to go out whenever he had the chance, he started declining to go out (or just going out to pee) when asked. He also started stopping in the middle of walks, at first on longer walks and then on relatively short walks, refusing to move for several minutes, either to go forward or to go back. There was also a change in his gait. When walking uphill he would favor his right leg. It wasn't a pronounced limp so much as a bobbing of his head. The vet x-rayed his leg and shoulder to rule out osteosarcoma and the orthopedist suspected bicipital tenosynovitis. I wish we would've pursued this more aggressively and followed up sooner.

(2) The second was an unexplained bout of nausea and vomiting that occurred several months ago. Blood tests at the time didn't indicate anything unusual, other than a decrease in platelets (91,000 compared to 104,000 in July 2012, 116,000 in August 2011, and 133,000 in July 2010). When we rechecked platelets 3 weeks later they were at 99,000 and his 4DX came back negative, so we assumed the nausea/vomiting was due to something he ate. (We live in the country and I had observed him eating frozen feces of some wild animal.) I wish we had also done an abdominal ultrasound at the time; that might have shown something was amiss.

(3) The third was an incident that occurred a day or two before Duke became seriously ill. One evening when he was lying on his bed he started licking the base of his chest. I scratched the area for him several times but he kept licking at it, almost obsessively. We had applied Advantix II for the first time on July 1st so I attributed it to skin irritation. In retrospect I should've taken him in to get checked.

I'll also never forgive myself for ignoring important signs on July 4th. When Duke vomited at 5:30am, I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss it as tummy upset. I should have sat with him to see how he was doing. Instead I cleaned up the vomit, reassured him, and went back to bed. Later, after I had eaten my breakfast, I offered Duke and Joy some milk, as I always do. Duke took several laps of milk and then refused to drink any more. This is a dog who lives for food and drink! Right then and there I should've taken him to the ER. It wasn't until after breakfast and a short walk that I realized how uncomfortable he was and that his abdomen was distended.

Finally, I'm sorry we let Duke fight so long. I was so sure he would beat the odds that I failed to see that, despite the occasional improvement, his overall condition was getting worse, not better. If I had acknowledged this we could've saved him from some of his suffering, and we could have been with him when he passed. Thankfully we were with him near the end, but it kills me that this beautiful, sweet, gentle, loving boy, who spent nearly every hour of his four years with us and wanted nothing more than to be with us, had to leave this world without us by his side. Words cannot express the pain, sorrow, and guilt I feel.

Here's another photo of our happy boy:

[Batmom]

{{{{{{{{{{Victor & family}}}}}}}}}}

 

You did what I would have done, at each step.

 

The vets thought he had a chance, you thought he had a chance. There was nothing at all wrong with trying to save a very sick dog. Sometimes a dog *can* recover from an illness like that. It hurts, miserably, that Duke could not, but there should be no blame or guilt for trying.

 

I too am sorry you couldn't be with your boy at the end but it sounds like he was surrounded by people who also loved him well.

[bradymom]

Victor and family,

I could not say it any better that "Batmom".

 

You are in my thoughts and prayers.

 

Debbie

[Victor]

Thank you, Batmom. It means a lot to hear you say that.

 

Thank you, Debbie.

[Guest LazyBlaze]

Victor, you did everything you could for your boy. Please don't beat yourself up. Duke's condition was one where he had a chance of full recovery. It wasn't a degenerative condition where there was no hope of a turnaround. I don't think there is anyone who loves their dog that wouldn't want to fight for that chance. Everything you did along the way, in response to what you think in hindsight might have been signs of his clot, were absolutely normal and responsible actions to take. How could you have known. You couldn't have done any more.

 

Most of us know - and wish we didn't - how devastating it is to lose a beloved dog, so my heart really is with you at this time. Duke was lucky to have a family that loved him as much as you did.

 

[RaineysMom]

I am so very, very sorry :( I kept praying for a turnaround. You all fought so hard. :(

 

I just read your post above I'm sure I'm just paranoid, but our Larry, who is also 7, seems to have developed the same kind of limp just in the past couple months as well. Not a true limp, like our Nube had with osteo, but like you said, the gait is off now. And Larry also had a bout of vomiting in April? I think -- they did a barium GI and everything came out ok, but there was a "shadow" in the xray. He's been fine since.

 

thanks for the info -- if I notice him licking his chest (he does sometimes snap his head and look at it like there's a fly on it?) I'll get him in asap.

Edited July 9, 2014 by RaineysMom

[Houndtime]

I am sure that Duke knows how much he was loved. Don't beat yourself up. We love our dogs as much as we can, but, some things are just out of our control.