Our old dog has lost the ability to walk. We're HOPING he will recover

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Our dog Doc is a 14 year old yellow lab. Over the past year he has slowed down dramatically because of arthritis, walking very stiffly and slipping occasionally, but still able to walk. Until Saturday night. He was laying in the corner, and all of a sudden, started flailing around, as if he was having a seizure. He stopped kicking and flailing after about 30 seconds. We tried standing him up, but his head would tilt to the side and he would immediately collapse.

The next day, Sunday, our vet was closed, but we took him to an emergency vet that night. They gave him a diagnosis of “Old dog ideopathic vestibular disease” and said that we should monitor him over the coming days and hope that he recovers on his own, as dogs often are able to do. They couldn’t exactly rule out a stroke or brain tumor, but said his mental faculties were “all there” and so he didn’t show signs of it.

We had him laying on his side on a doggie bed, trying to keep him comfortable. He would eat no food (not even ‘people food’ which he typically devours) and would slurp up only a tiny bit of water dripped into his mouth. The next day, we took him to his regular vet. They gave him a similar diagnosis as the emergency vet, but said they also found a “mass on his spleen”. He has had several “fatty tumors” bulging on the outside of his legs and abdomen over the past few years, which the vet said were benign. This time, though, they said the mass on his spleen COULD be cancer and COULD have spread to his brain, causing his current predicament. To know for sure would require a very costly MRI, and in any event, there isn’t much we could do to fix him even if we knew for certain. So we’re just praying that it is indeed only “ideopathic vestibular syndrome” and that he will pull through.

His condition over the past two days seems to have slightly improved. Yesterday he ate chicken and slurped up plenty of water from a bowl held in front of his face. He’s still laying in the bed, but he raised his head more and his eyes were darting around with less frequency. I have to pick him up and carry him out to the yard so he can pee or poop. The first day (Sunday) he would immediately fall to the ground and I’d have to hold him up. Yesterday, he was able to lean against a tree (when placed there) and did not fling himself to the ground. Today, he actually managed to stand on his own for a while - when placed a few inches from the tree, in CASE he fell over, but not directly touching it. He wagged his tail and held his head up more confidently, though it still tilts to the left. At this point he still lists to the side considerably and we haven’t attempted to get him to take steps on his own. But his body language seems to have improved a bit.

It’s very sad to see him in this state, since he’s always been so vigorous. And we knew he’d eventually get old and decline, but of course nothing really prepares you for when it happens. But we’re hanging onto that little bit of hope that he can pull through and we can get even just a little more time with this old dog. On the plus side, he has NOT been losing control of his bowels or bladder inside the house; he has not been vomiting; he is not whimpering or showing any signs of physical pain.

If anyone has had a dog in the same or similar scenario, please feel free to offer any advice or encouragement that you can. Thank you.

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Good boy, Doc! I add my hopes to yours for his recovery.

3

I recently stumbled on a thread that may be of interest to you:

Meanwhile, mine’s a yellow lab. My best thoughts to you, Doc, and your family. I hope for lots of good days still to come.

4

Hey, thanks for sharing that thread here @DavidNRockies !

2014 was a very long year for us, but me and Dolly made the best of our final year together. I can give you the gory details if you want, @Lamoral but it might be better left unsaid for now. Give your doggy the best life while you can. Life with Old Dog disease is challenging but it gives you a chance to slow down and pamper the hell out of your best bud. No regrets!

5

I’m joining the “hoping for the best” crowd. Doc is lucky to have such a good and caring human and I hope all of you have as much love and good times possible in his remaining time.

Cat kibble is a very high calorie treat that dogs love. Maybe grab a small bag when you are in the store next. Its hard to keep weight on sick critters but when they are in hospice, I don’t really care much about the long term effects of feeding mostly treats.

6

Count me in with those pulling for good ol’ doc. A good boy deserves a good diagnosis…and lots of scritchels, of course.

If, as we hope, Doc continues to improve, what’s the plan re: the mass? Hoping it turns out to be benign and of no further consequence.

7

If a dog can walk on his front paws but not his rear paws look into getting a dog wheelchair:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=dog+wheel+chair

8

I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but Labs are very susceptible to getting Splenic tumors, and the prognosis isn’t good:

We lost our Golden to this a few years ago.
I hope your dog recovers, but - 14 is a good run for a Lab.

9

Best wishes, but yeah - 14 is pretty up there. Don’t let your hopes cloud your judgment.

Our last golden died at 12. He had been slowing down, but the decline happened suddenly - one afternoon. We had him put down the next morning (it was obvious - and a necropsy revealed the cancer.) I don’t THINK we missed obvious signs before that day…

10

He’s not 100% lab, the DNA test we gave him showed a bunch of other breeds including husky and beagle, but he looks like a lab so we call him a lab. I don’t know if that’s just clinging to false hope or what, but maybe the “hybrid vigor” they talk about has some validity to it.

11

Our ridiculously old dog Ella (she’s at least 15) had old dog vestibular disease about 6 months ago. She was already in pretty poor condition, so when she stopped eating she became pretty skeletal looking in a few days time. My gf voted for euthanasia, I wanted to give her a chance.

Recovery was very gradual, but we persisted. For awhile I was feeding four small meals a day. Currently she looks better than she did before the vestibular stuff occurred. She’s on deracoxib daily and still chases squirrels, though just for a step or three.

Having come close to saying goodbye to her has made the past six months especially sweet. She seems to know how hard we have worked to make her feel better. Now we are joking about the irony of her surviving me.

12

About 15 years ago, one of my dogs, a 13-year-old Shetland sheepdog mix, came down with vestibular disease. I thought she was having a seizure. Very scary. She had to stay at the vet’s office for a day or two on an I.V. drip. She made a full recovery in about two weeks I recall, and lived a couple more happy active years before we had to put her down for an unrelated issue. Good luck.

13

For those of you whose dogs recovered, may I ask how much was spent in treatment for how much additional life of what quality?

As difficult as the decision is, I am of the opinion that such calculations ought to play some part in deciding whether or not to pursue vet treatment. I’ll pay a lot more to address an acute condition in a younger dog, that I will to stave off the inevitable for an old/infirm dog. Of course, deciding upon the time and price is quite challenging.

14

$44, the cost of a physical exam and diagnosis. Medication was OTC, 50 mg of diphenhydramine three times daily. If I included the cost of my nursing care, it was a small fortune. I slept with her on the floor so that I could prop her up and walk her outside to pee every so often.

We are now six months later and her quality of life is fantastic. I’ve put the weight she lost back on and she continues to be pampered. I bought 5 pounds of beef heart patties and she’s been getting one with each meal.

15

If all you can afford is to keep them comfortable, then do that. But it’s not only an issue of finances; it’s also an issue of the strain on the dog versus the chances of likely good time gained.

A surgery, for instance, that a two-year-old dog has a good chance of surviving and that may lead to another ten or twelve years of healthy life, is a different thing than the same surgery on a 14 year old dog with a much poorer chance of survival who may or may not gain another six months (and be in pain from the surgery for three of them). The same consideration goes to tests if the only question the test might answer is ‘shall we do this invasive and stressful treatment?’ If you’re not going to do anything differently as a result of the test, then don’t do the test.

Love the dog. Feed the dog treats. Consult with the vet., and consult the best you can with the dog.

16

Definitely a success story.

I’m not familiar w/ this condition. When my old guy went downhill precipitously, one afternoon he would not get up and walk. We noticed he had not eaten that day, and w/o getting up, he puked. We carried him outside, and he cowered under a bush. We decided we would see if he had improved the next morning.

The next morning he hadn’t, so we carried him to the car and drove to the vet. Vet said he suspected a tumor/bleed. Felt putting him down the best option. W/o us asking, he performed a necropsy, which confirmed his suspicion.

I’ve known some folk who go through expensive open-ended treatment for old dogs who never regain the quality of life your pup has. That I personally don’t understand.

Right now, one of our best friends has an old yappy shit zu that has been the the walking dead for some time. I woulda put it down months ago. Her mother lives w/ her and has been on hospice, and seems to be failing. We could not believe it the other day when she said she wondered whether her dog or her mom would pass first! (NOT a happy household at the moment!)

17

I appreciate the replies and advice. As of now, it’s been five days since the first onset. The past two days, we’ve gotten him outside and he can lean against a tree to pee, and walk in circles around the tree (although I keep my hand by him in case he starts to fall.) If I take my hand off his harness and try to get him to move forward, he is able to take a few wobbly steps, unassisted, but I don’t want him to hurt himself so I don’t really think it’s worth it to try to make him walk just to see how far he can go. He has the ability to SIT up, unassisted, for a few minutes. I mean sit UP, not sit “down” with all four legs laying on the ground, but with his front legs standing up. When this first started, he could not remotely do this. He would fling himself to the ground and his head would be twisted way down and to the left any time he wasn’t laying on his side. Now, his head still tilts to the side, but the tilt is a bit less pronounced.

The hard parts:

  1. He had diarrhea yesterday, probably because we fed him a steak cooked in butter and other “people food”. He continually messed himself while laying down inside (I kept placing those doggie-pad things under his tail, after cleaning him up, but then he’d go do it again 10 minutes later.) He did the same thing today, but the poop was a little more solid. Still “creamy” and not truly solid, but NOT liquid like yesterday.

(Aside - it’s been very frustrating to deal with this part, I’m so out of my comfort zone even talking about stuff like this, let alone going through it…this is the kind of thread that I would ALWAYS scroll past, and now I’m the one starting it.)

  1. Related to the first - he has ALWAYS been a picky eater. Over the past year he’s gotten even pickier, to where we’ve had to put chicken broth and shredded chicken mixed in with his dog food to get him to eat. It’s not that he has no appetite, it’s that he only likes to eat that, and once we started feeding it to him, we set a precedent that he would get it, and so if we left it out, he wouldn’t be interested in regular dog food. Now, in this situation, we’re trying to get him to eat stuff to make his bowel movements more solid, and it’s tough. He will eat ham, steak, chicken, peanut butter, but we tried feeding him some pieces of pumpkin cooked with rice flour (on the recommendation of one of the things we read) and he really isn’t too interested in eating them. He spits them out. Earlier, we fed him chunks of a cooked pork chop, and he ate them, but we had to smear them with the pumpkin mix just to get him to eat the latter since he would not eat the pieces alone. What are some other fibrous/starchy things we might be able to give him to make him more regular and solid?

It’s such a frustrating situation but we are NOT GIVING UP. Appreciate all the help and support.

18

We’ve given our dogs cooked white rice to help with the shits. You could mix in the broth, etc.

19

We cooked up a mixture of gluten-free pumpkin pancakes, white rice, and lean ground beef, and he’s eating it enthusiastically. This is a good sign, and it’s the kind of food that’s not going to turn into diarrhea. It’s a very good development, so far as anything can be under these circumstances. Just thought I’d mention that in case anyone else might need the recipe.

20

Dinsdale - My old dog had vestibular disease maybe 25 years ago. She was already very old and not in the greatest of shape - urinary incontinence, some dementia. So was so disoriented and unhappy with the vertigo. The vet and I talked about having her stay at the hospital for a week while they sedated her to see if it improved, but I knew from the one time she’d been hospitalized before that she wouldn’t react well to being away from me. We decided that it was kinder to euthanize her. Reading the success stories others had makes me second-guess myself a bit, but I know she really didn’t have the greatest quality of life even before the vestibular disease, so I try to cut myself some slack. You can only give them the best life they can have. Some day you have to say goodbye. And I’ve always believed better a day too soon than a day too late.

StG