[007]

hello, our charme (female basset hound almost 11 years old) passed away 4/4/21 sometime in the A.M. maybe 3 or 4 o’clock. She had not eaten in about a month. we took her to vet early part of march and he ran test, xrays and could not find any disease, no blockage, did not appear to have cancer. vet gave her antibiotics, med to keep from throwing up, and pepcid. For the last month she just quit eating on her own. She did pee and poop ok for the rest of the month. It all started early part of march when she eat normal and then started to throw up and would not eat from her bowl again. we had her to the vet 2 times in march and 2 times they had to do iv for the night, she was losing weight and getting dehydrated. during most of the month of march she did drink water on her own till a few days before she passed away. some of our other basset hounds also got sick at same time she did but they got over it. the vet also said that well, maybe the food was from the bottom of the batch and it was bad. For this last month(March/April) my wife fed her dog food from can by putting it in her mouth and she would eat that, also my wife used syringe to put chicken broth in her mouth and she would take some of that. One other note, the first part of March when we brought her from the vet i noticed one of her teeth was loose, but her gums were not purple or discolored from what i could tell, on the 2nd visit to the vet in march i mentioned it to him and he seemed to brush it off. On 4/3/21 in the afternoon she did not want to open her mouth for the chicken broth but we gave her a little. On 4/4/21at about 8:00 AM, my wife told me she thought she died and i checked her, she was laying on carpet floor by couch and was still somewhat warm but she was not breathing. the vet had wanted to do some more test earlier in march but due to finances we could not afford it. she lived for about a month at the onset of this problem. one thing the vet told us if i understood right was that xray showed that it looked like the stomach was not contracting, like staying full all the time and that was making her throw up. anyway, sorry for going on about this but i myself still feel lots of grief over this. i wish i knew what was the cause of this. i don’t know if there is anything you can say to make me feel better, i just feel so sad over this. One last thing, back about 7 years ago i had stage IIIa colon cancer and i was at home and had been taking chemo so i slept in another room of our house, a lot of times she would come in and lay on floor beside my bed, it seemed she knew i was sick, i will never forget that. Does anyone have any ideas on this, sorry to keep rambling but during the last part of March i would have to help her up the steps to get back in the house from using the bathroom and i think that on 4/2 or 4/3 i think she quit using the bathroom. Also, the last week of her life i would lay her in her bed but she would get out of it and lay on carpet floor or go into the kitchen and lay on tile floor by water bowl. During all this time she did not cry out in pain, even when i would pick her up underneath her front legs and back legs to bring her into the house from using the bathroom. Did i do wrong by not going ahead and having more test? the vet kind of wanted her to come back for more IV but we could not afford bringing her every day and leaving her the night at the vet. Thanks for listening.

 

[TeazelsMum]

Having waded through that very sad story, she was clearly in trouble and I would suspect some form of cancer but I'm NOT a vet. We had one who went off her food and I spent hours coaxing her to eat which she would, reluctantly. This went on for about 6 months with my vet really not coming to any conclusive diagnosis. On her last night, she was producing the most awful bloody diarrhoea and by morning, I knew I had to give her peace. She wasn't quite 11 either, and 'young' for one of our lines. We never really knew what the problem was and at the time, couldn't afford extensive ongoing testing. I think she probably had stomach cancer.

There really is no point telling you you didn't do enough or perhaps your vet didn't either? - hindsight and all that and after all, all the testing in the world may not have saved her.

I would say we lost what will probably be our last Basset almost a year ago after he went off his back legs. He'd had a load of problems including an episode which I thought was GDV (Bloat with torsion) but although x-ray showed a mass of food that wasn't passing through, it wasn't typical for bloat as we'd had before in 4 others. He was put on a drip (which kept coming out) and kept in for 2 nights before he finallyi managed to move the 'blockage'. He was only 10.5 and I still feel so cheated to have had to let him go. I have just had to accept that he'd had enough (my vet called me later and said we'd done the right thing - this was when we were in lockdown and we couldn't be there with him at the end) and we'd been able to give him peace.

Had you needed to know, you could have asked your vet to do a necropsy, but that wouldn't have brought her back, even if it might have given you closure? I'm so sorry for your loss - it hurts and even having lose how-many of ours over the years, it never got any easier.

 

[007]

Having waded through that very sad story, she was clearly in trouble and I would suspect some form of cancer but I'm NOT a vet. We had one who went off her food and I spent hours coaxing her to eat which she would, reluctantly. This went on for about 6 months with my vet really not coming to any conclusive diagnosis. On her last night, she was producing the most awful bloody diarrhoea and by morning, I knew I had to give her peace. She wasn't quite 11 either, and 'young' for one of our lines. We never really knew what the problem was and at the time, couldn't afford extensive ongoing testing. I think she probably had stomach cancer.

There really is no point telling you you didn't do enough or perhaps your vet didn't either? - hindsight and all that and after all, all the testing in the world may not have saved her.

I would say we lost what will probably be our last Basset almost a year ago after he went off his back legs. He'd had a load of problems including an episode which I thought was GDV (Bloat with torsion) but although x-ray showed a mass of food that wasn't passing through, it wasn't typical for bloat as we'd had before in 4 others. He was put on a drip (which kept coming out) and kept in for 2 nights before he finallyi managed to move the 'blockage'. He was only 10.5 and I still feel so cheated to have had to let him go. I have just had to accept that he'd had enough (my vet called me later and said we'd done the right thing - this was when we were in lockdown and we couldn't be there with him at the end) and we'd been able to give him peace.

Had you needed to know, you could have asked your vet to do a necropsy, but that wouldn't have brought her back, even if it might have given you closure? I'm so sorry for your loss - it hurts and even having lose how-many of ours over the years, it never got any easier.

Thank you for your kind words, I really do appreciate them. Its been about 5 days now and i still miss her a lot, I know it will eventually get better. My wife and I have 7 bassets and the only other one we lost was march 2020 and that was due to the bloat of stomach, we got him to the vet but he died before vet could do the operation. If you don't mind, I have one other question, since this went on for a month, from what I have described, do you think she was in any pain? I am guilt ridden over that. During this month that this started to happen, she did not cry or wimper any except for one time that picked her up under front legs to help her back in house after she used bathroom, she just cried a little and I may have grabbed her in wrong place under front legs, the other time was in the middle of March when we took her for the 2nd time to vet and they were trying to find a vein in right paw to start the IV and they had trouble finding a vein and she hollered out but the next day when we picked her up she was not crying or anything, also both times in March when we took her to the vet he pushed on her stomach and other places and she did not cry out in pain, I just hope during this month she was not in pain, of the medicines the vet gave her I don't believe any was for pain control. Again, I would just like your opinion on this last thing. My wife has had dogs all her life and I could see she was sad on the day she died but she seems ok now. I am just trying to hide my grief the best I can.

 

[TeazelsMum]

Again, I can only say what will be, will be. If I say she was in pain will that help? I think not!! From my experience, Bassets don't often suffer pain without making their pain known (shivering especially) although the bitches can be more stoic than the boys. I always remember Joan Wells-Meacham (Fredwell) saying we had to carry the pain for them.. She may have been right. Right through what I wrote about our girl, she didn't cry out. There was some shivering going on however.

As for how your wife feels, perhaps she has learn to accept the inevitable over the years. We all react to such events in ouir own way. I have to say it often helps to vent, one way or the other. JMO.