Pets

So Baku's belly is a little larger than normal and he's limping a bit, so I took him to the vet today.

Turns out he has a fairly large tumor in his chest area that must have ruptured, and it's filling his belly with blood. Not his stomach, mind you. This is an under the skin thing. The doctor told us that this is unfortunately, not terribly uncommon with the breed, and he should have surgery in the next few hours because it's very likely to be cancerous.

My mom's husband put his dog down on Tuesday, so we called him to ask for his advice. His dog had a bout with cancer about 7 months ago, and he paid the $6,000 for the surgery. The moment his dogs wounds were fully healed, SURPRISE! Cancer's back with a vengeance. He was dying fast, so to stop the pain, he was put down.

He said if he had to do it all over again, he never would have had the surgery in the first place. He would have much rather his dog been happy the whole time, than in lots of pain from being cut open. Well, this is the decision we're making also.

Baku's blood pressure is high, which is way better than being low. We're going to treat him like a king until he shows an increase of pain. Right now, his pain appears to be just discomfort (similar to a sore tooth), as opposed to something more severe. As soon as he shows an advancement, we're going to put him down.

Holy shit, what a really shitty day. We also decided to explain to my daughter what death means. There has been plenty of crying throughout my wife, daughter and myself today. What an emotionally exhausting day.

What sucks even more is Baku isn't quite 7 yet. We're not sure he's going to even make it to his birthday, on July 20th.

Really depressing. I was really looking forward to how he experiences all the new sights and smells when we move to Hawaii. That is now officially off the table. He'll be in Pennsylvania until he's gone =(

Fuck...

Serious question here, not stirring anything.

You said the surgery for his dog was 6k but do you know for sure that's what it will cost you?

The only other comment is different dogs respond to things differently.

Obviously it's terrible either way. A couple years ago I had to put down my dog of 13 years and its still the worst day of my life. Whatever you end up doing, just show Baku a lot of love.

The vet said that the surgery was going to be either 4k or 6k, depending on where the tumor was that was causing the bleeding. If it's the spleen, they would remove it (the spleen) for around $4k. If it's the Liver (they remove a section of it), it's a little big worse of an operation, and will cost around $6k. And regardless of which organ it is, it wouldn't solve the problem. It's only doing a bandaid on the much worse problem of cancer. She would then recommend doing Chemo, but then his quality of life would plummet. I don't want to do that.

Losing a pet is never easy. My Border Collie is 8 but he's had so many issues in his life (he was a puppy mill dog) that if he makes it to 12 that'll be great. I've spent a lot of money as well as unfortunately there comes a point where you got to ask if prolonging their life (by surgery or anything else) is really what's good for the dog going forward. I hate to say it but money does become a factor which sucks because it would never be a factor if it was a human (your child). It's going to suck a lot when mine finally goes.

I'm sorry for you. It ain't easy.

He passed today. We're pretty devastated, but I'm kind of glad that it happened so quickly as opposed to dragging its feet through the mud and making my dog suffer.

That was definitely difficult.

Damn, sorry man.

Sorry. I was going to suggest to shop around. I had a cat get caught in a tree about 10 years ago that tore his ACL or MCL and the first vet wanted $4k to fix it. I went to another vet and they said they had never done it but would try and charged $400. I really didn't want to spend $4k on a cat. They did it and the cat healed up walked fine and live another 8 years.

Fucking sucks mang.

CSB time:

My wife and I "adopted" the family cat a few years back; we were probably the third or fourth owners of this particular cat. He was a semi-feral Maine Coone that initially had issues with men and socialization issues. To begin with I hated that SOB. Needless to say, we kept him around and essentially tamed him over the course of 6-7 years. He was certainly a one-woman cat; he fucking LOVED my wife--she was his human 100%. One day he started showing signs of weakness--he couldn't move well, wouldn't eat, would pee and couldn't move from the puddle. So I, as the "man" of the house, get to take him to the vet to check him out. The vet essentially says "no fucking clue bro" and we decide to put him down. Cue my waterworks. I don't recall crying that hard in a good long while.

In short pets suck....and are fucking awesome while you have them.

orcmauler_sl said:

Fucking sucks mang.

CSB time:

My wife and I "adopted" the family cat ...One day he started showing signs of weakness--he couldn't move well, wouldn't eat, would pee and couldn't move from the puddle. So I, as the "man" of the house, get to take him to the vet to check him out. The vet essentially says "no fucking clue bro" and we decide to put him down. Cue my waterworks. I don't recall crying that hard in a good long while.

In short pets suck....and are fucking awesome while you have them.

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Sorry to hear it =/

Dunno if this was the case (vet probably would have recognized it), but otherwise healthy cats can throw clots in their aortas or leg arteries that aren't immediately fatal, but it wipe our their lower bodies and they can't recover. It's horrible.

They can be little furry family members. When my first pug, Uggie (Oogie), had pancreatic cancer, numerous cysts, and projected bill/chemo over 20k or so with a dour prognosis, despite regular vet visits, I thought I was done with animals. 2-3 hours of hysterical crying and 8 years later I now haveBuzzand intend to stagger my pugs from here on out. They'll never last forever, but you can reflect on or enjoy the time you had with them. My largest regret with my first pug was not taking enough pictures. My largest regret with Buzz is not having a go-pro with me at all times to capture the adorable moments.

We actually put Baku down. They have these vets that will actually come to your house and do the euthanasia procedure where you and the pet are most comfortable. My wife decided that she would like the ashes back, just because she could sprinkle some of them in our yard, then take the rest to Hawaii when we move. At least he kind of made the trip. The at home vet made this little foot print thing that's in a plastic case. My daughter loves it and carries it all over the place. That surprised me because she's never been very affectionate with Baku. In fact, the only time she ever hugged him was when we asked her to. Then a really touching moment was after the vet gave him his first heavy sedative, that knocks him out, she went over and kissed his forehead. Oh man did the tears pour out watching that. It was very sweet, and I was happy she did that (on her own, no coaxing from us). Then when they gave him the final injection that actually ended his life, she walked over and handed him a rawhide chew thing so he could take it with him. We explained earlier in the day that he would be dead and his body was going away, but she thought he would want a gift anyway.

Ok, now I'm tearing up again after typing that.

That is rather sweet. I had to go to a vet we had never gone to before, because the other one was on vacation, to hear the bad news, which also raised suspicion about the care of my pug baby under the other vet. But the new vet was very thorough and empirical. It was a terrible first meeting.