Twelve and a half years ago, she came to me as a feisty, temperamental nine-month-old foster dog who’d already nipped a child’s face and soon earned herself a muzzle by trying to do the same to Furrydoc.
Today she went under anesthesia for a tooth cleaning. Furrydoc needed four tries to find a vein that didn’t collapse (thus the multiple bandages), and through all that, my sweet and very changed girl didn’t even flinch, let alone attempt to take a bite out of the vet.
I love the old ones.
But oh my.
She needed three teeth pulled. And the blood profile I requested revealed that my old girl is in early-stage kidney failure.
Ava’s breath has recently become cosmically bad. This week The Wandering Monk noticed it from four feet away and four feet above her head. I hoped her halitosis was just from icky teeth, but since she’d had a cleaning a little over a year ago and her breath was so truly horrific, I suspected worse.
However, she wasn’t showing any other signs pointing to kidney failure.
I’ll know more after Furrydoc has the result of a urinalysis. But even though she says this can be managed with special food and that chronic (as opposed to more drastic acute) kidney failure is common in elderly female dogs, I heard the unspoken words “beginning of the end.”
On the bright side, Ava’s home and happy. And my dear, dear friend Furrydoc made this much easier by covering a very significant portion of today’s care as her Christmas present to me.
And Ava came home with a squeaky stuffed lamb and a bag of dental chews as her presents — with a caution that she won’t be ready for those chews until three empty tooth sockets heal up a bit.
My poor sweet OLD girl, though …
I’m so sorry she’s getting up there, Claire. We have a few kitties that are at the same stage, and that breath is no joke.
Hopefully, we will keep them going for a few more years, but at least one of them is likely to pass in 2019. The good news is we expected him to go in 2018, so just enjoy the time you get with her, and love her while you can.
You’re her whole life.
Four sticks to find a good vein, poor Ava, she was very dehydrated. Maybe now the dental work is done,and she feels better, she’ll increase her fluid intake and the renal problem will be resolved.
It’s so very, very hard. I believe it’s our moral obligation to outlive them.
Aw. I’ve wondered about that a few times lately, because she’s been around a really long time.
I’m luckier, I get to remember her as the irrepressible young Beauty who wouldn’t ever let you just do what you had to do with a garden hose…
I just talked with Furrydoc, and while there’s more to do before we really know what’s what, she said the various blood-chemical levels indicate that Ava has between 35% and 20% kidney function remaining — which to my surprise is considered not all that bad.
We don’t know how long Ava’s kidneys have been malfunctioning because last time she had bloodwork (three years ago) all was normal. So it could have begun any time since then, which makes it hard to do any projections.
Still, since it appears to be “just old age” rather than the product of infection, she’s assuming the prognosis is likely to be years more of life if we do everything right, rather than months. Unfortunately, Georgia, the problem will degenerate, not resolve.
So it’ll be a prescription diet and bloodwork at least twice a year from here on out, maybe IV fluids at some point, who knows? Then another familiar, terrible decision to be made.
Yeah, they break our hearts, don’t they? But they fill our hearts first.
Take care of those old pups and kitties and love ’em while you’ve got ’em.
“I believe it’s our moral obligation to outlive them.”
You know, I believe this, too.
Years and years ago, I read a bit of dialog in a novel that stuck with me. It was from an old man mourning his dog but saying he’d never get another because (I paraphrase), “At some point you realize your dog might outlive you.” And yes, that turns the world upside down.
I wouldn’t mind dying before my dog if I knew good people were standing by to help the critter(s) right away. But the idea of them suffering because of my death is harder to bear than the thought of my death itself.
I hear you, and at 64, it occurs to me that I’m probably on my last pair of cats, if I want to be responsible — and I do. But I think I’m going to agree that we’re obligated to outlive our furry housemates. Because we have their whole lives to prepare for their mortality. I think it’s a bit much to expect the critters to understand that we are mortal.
On the other hand, I may be greatly overestimating my importance to my felines. If both my wife and I fall over and hand in our lunch pails next week, the cats may think the equivalent of “that sucks … sure hope some other human shows up pretty soon to top up the food bowls, change out the water, and scoop the litter box. Meanwhile, hmmmmm … we’re supposed to eat their faces, right?”
“Meanwhile, hmmmmm … we’re supposed to eat their faces, right?”
LOL — and right on.
In that circumstance, I hope any four-legged family member takes exactly that attitude.
I’m leaving instructions for my leftovers to be cremated; they might as well be put to some good, four-legged lifesaving use it cremation ends up unaccountably delayed.
Very sorry to hear about Ava but very happy to hear years and not months. As I write this I am looking at the containers that carry the ashes of my last 4 dogs which only go back 2 decades, each one I can see in my mine eye right now.
Da Bones is now 2-1/2, and has grown up so much in the last few months. Yesterday we walked by a farm that raises Alpaca’s and they have three Great Pry’s as protectors, the youngest of which ran hard at us up to the fence, I shortened Da Bones leach and spoke to him to behave and he did, a few months ago it would have been a real struggle with him, he is still a PITA but he has gotten to be so much better.
BTW I love the photo of Ava!