We agree on that!
These friends of ours, man, they are torturing their dog, just kinda hoping one day it will go to sleep and not wake up. I love dogs, and pretty much anytime I’m around them, I’m happy to pet them and interact with them (unless their coat is too stinky!) This little yapper, I just ignore, because looking at it is too sad.
I can completely understand the idea of ending a dog’s suffering, but in our case, he doesn’t really seem to be suffering. He’s not whimpering in pain, he’s basically doing the same thing he did for the past year - laying on the ground contentedly. If I have to pick him up and carry him outside a few times a day, well, I’m willing to keep doing it.
Agreeing with @Lamoral. You have to go by the particular creature. If they’re miserable, that’s one thing. If they’re just getting weaker but are comfortable and still taking an interest in at least some things they like, that’s a different thing. And in this case Lamoral’s dog seems to be improving.
Best of luck to ol’ Doc.
Yes. The dogs always seem to have some serious shit go down on a Friday or Saturday, or the night of July 3rd. Never fails. 
Our Ella has always been a picky eater. Hill’s Science Diet makes a canned food called a/d, which is energy dense and very tasty. I’ve gone through many cases the past few months.
I had similar circumstances with my dog Reggie last year, and it doesn’t have a happy ending. He had cancer. I had to carry him outside to pee, and he could barely stand. He constantly whined in pain during the night and I couldn’t sleep. I finally made the decision to put him to sleep last October and it was the most heartbreaking moment of my life.
To put a fine point on it, I buried him in the back yard and topped his grave with 50 lbs of beach pebbles so my other dog wouldn’t dig him up.
I’m going to say, cautiously, that he has improved a little. It’s now been six days. His eyes are no longer darting from side to side. He is able to stand up in the yard when I carry him out there, and while he still cannot walk a few steps without leaning over to the side (which is when I intervene to prop him back up), he is NOT flinging himself to the ground and his head and body are no longer tilted so dramatically. His head still leans over to the left, but he is able to stand up without his entire body keeling over. He has had a good appetite, eating up a serving of wet dog food today (a mixture of lamb and barley), and slurping up water. There isn’t any way in which he has gotten any worse off from where he was after this first happened.
I don’t want to try to make him walk on his own, because I don’t want him to fall and hurt himself. But I will say it seems like he has recovered a little bit of strength, and again, he hasn’t gotten worse in any way since this started.
This is enough to give me some hope that the condition will, indeed, pass. We’re just going to take it day by day.
Sounds like your dog is progressing nicely. For a few weeks after our Ella was “normal” she would still occasionally fall over when she gave herself a good shake.
Kayaker, if you could describe the timeline of your dog’s recovery, it would be helpful. What was the time span of when she was able to sit up, versus stand up, versus walk (assisted,) versus walk unassisted? Our guy can sit up from a side-laying-down position at this point, and once carried out to the yard, he can stand up, but he’s still falling down after a few steps. What’s giving us some hope here is that he hasn’t gotten any WORSE since the onset - he’s making little baby steps of recovery, but the major point of stress is just the uncertainty of the timeline. If you have any input that might help, please share. Thank you.
Ella was acutely ill on day one. She couldn’t stand unassisted, had vomited several times over night. We got her up and she fell over. I got her up and into my Jeep, where her bladder emptied. We got her to the veterinarian and a diagnosis was made.
That was a Saturday. The rest of that weekend I stayed with her pretty much all the time. I learned that if I got her standing and let her lean against me we could both walk slowly (like a couple of drunken sailors) outside to pee. She refused food the first three days, but drank water. My gf and I argued a bit, as she thought Ella was suffering.
I stayed home from work Monday. On Tuesday I pretended there was improvement (my gf initially agreed to give her a few days). On Wednesday there really was some improvement. I cooked some ground beef and she ate it. She also had some diarrhea.
By the end of week one she and I had a routine. Every couple hours I’d take her outside with her leaning against me until we were in the yard, then I’d let her walk a bit on her own. She’d lay down in the grass and get some sun.
The third week she started to walk without leaning on me for support. She would still fall over if she shook or if one of the other dogs startled her. I began feeding her as much as she’d eat, four or five times a day, trying to put back some of the weight she’d lost.
The fourth week I really believed she was definitely going to be okay. From then until now I’ve been feeding her all kinds of special food. Turns out she likes the cheap burritos sold by the bag at dollar general. I cook one each day, cut it up into bite sized pieces, then I hand feed it to her. Weird, she won’t eat it from her dish, it’s just become part of our game that the burritos are fed by hand.
My gf says it took a solid three months before she really believed Ella was going to survive.
Thank you so much for these details. It’s really, really encouraging. The biggest concern for us right now is having to leave him unattended. We both have a lot of down time at home right now, so one of us can usually be in the room with him, but it’s inevitable that eventually we’re going to have to both be away from home. Our worry is that if he’s unattended, he will stand up, walk around a little, and then fall down and hurt himself. What did you do in this situation?
Did you leave any for Ella though?
Lamoral, I hope gets better and don’t forget to post a pic in the Pet picture thread so we can all agree who is a good boy.
Lamoral - Do you have a crate you could use for when you’re not with him?
StG
Yeah, we do have a crate. He continues to make progress. Today for the first time, upon being taken outside, he swiveled his head to the RIGHT side and moved his body in the RIGHT direction. This is a pretty big deal, he was not able to do it at all before. He has been taking more steps without leaning on anything. I keep my hand on the metal ring on the harness he wears so that I can quickly grasp it if he starts to lean, but he has been leaning less and walking more. His eyes are no longer darting from side to side.
It’s looking a little better every day.
Kayaker, I can’t even express what a second wind of relief your post about your dog’s recovery timeline gave me. From what I read, I was operating under the impression that it typically took five to seven days for this condition to clear up, and so with each passing day I became more stressed that he would not meet the “deadline.” When you said that it took your dog longer than three weeks to bounce back, it removed a great deal of psychological pressure from me. I really, really appreciate it.
What a good boy! I’ve been checking up on Doc daily, with hopes that he would continue to recover. I’m glad it seems to be going as well as possible.
His appetite is back to normal. His eyes have stopped darting. His head no longer leans so drastically to the left, and he is able to move it in both directions. He’s able to stand up; he’s able to walk a few steps without leaning; it’s about the best we could have hoped for. There is no way in which he has gotten any worse than he was last week, and many ways in which he’s better. So - for now, it’s good news. Knock wood.
Knock, knock, knock.
So glad to get the good news! Go, Doc, go!