We have an old (13 years old) dog who has been heart failure and on medications for about a year. Among the many maladies our poor dog has had have been coughing and choking spells which result in her fainting or having seizures where she urinates on herself, a loss in energy and appetite, short congested breathing, confusion and disorientation, potty accidents in our house, and as silly as it might sound, her tail constantly being down and her being regularly scared and needing to follow us around and be directly underneath us wherever we go. Most of these problems have been getting progressively worse and more regular and during the past weeks we started family discussions about whether our poor pet is suffering and if we should put her down. After many tears and even fights, our family was divided until yesterday, when, for no apparent reason, our dog just started choking and couldn't stop. Her breathing became short and very congested and she coughed/choked all night long and didn't sleep at all. This morning the choking and breathing problems continued and our family tearfully agreed to take her to Pets Unlimited to see a vet and probably put her down. The vet did an Xray and confirmed an extremely enlarged heart, an enlarged kidney and water in our dog's lungs. The vet also said that our dog was only getting about 50% oxygen so they needed to put her in an oxygen tank. The vet recommended that we keep the dog at Pets Unlimited in an oxygen tank for a few more days. When we tearfully said that our family had already come to the conclusion that we wanted to put her down and just needed the Xrays and proof that we weren't hallucinating our dog's suffering, the vet refused. The vet told us that the dog was ""doing fine"" in the oxygen tank and ""didn't seem to be suffering in there"" and he ""wouldn't put down an otherwise healthy dog just because WE were suffering."" He suggested us following up with a dog cardiologist, more meds, and more tests. more...
more