Big Dog in a Big Crisis and Me Giving Thanks

It began as slower walks around the block and clumsier hops onto the couch. When the crisis occurred, we had no idea what we were dealing with and I was completely off the mark.

Some history: Blind from birth, our Shar Pei cross has hip dysplasia and at 83 pounds fighting weight, has always been a lumbering boy rather than an athlete. When he was about eighteen months old, he tore his cranial cruciate ligament (similar to a human athlete’s ACL tear). Because of his blindness, he learns lessons only once and what he learned from the sudden pivot that tore his ligament was that he would not do that again (outside, but inside was okay). From the pain of walking on the injured knee, he learned that he would simply not put full weight on it. So, despite high quality surgery, the result was a flimsy right hip muscle and an overused left hip joint and increasingly dysplastic hips over what he might have had due to genetics alone.

So, when he began to slow down at just shy of twelve years old this late summer, we put the lumber-now-more-of-a-shuffle off to the hip pain.

Likewise, when he put on about four pounds, we blamed the reduced exercise. He struggled more to get on the couch and opted to lie on the tile more often instead. At our beach house, some days he cruised up the steps, others he took them carefully and allowed us to help him.

Then, about two weeks prior to turning twelve, he started dragging his hind feet. He also began to cough occasionally and pant heavily after minor effort such as getting excited when one of us came home after having been out for some time. He snored louder. He grumbled louder as he curled up at bedtime. He fell off his hind legs a couple of times. His walks were now glacially slow. All these things we put off to aging and the dysplasia/arthritis.

A few days after he turned twelve, he began to cough and wretch several times a day. Now something new was in the mix, but what? A friend suggested perhaps the hacking cough, the wretching, the failing back limbs, were all in line with “GOLPP”or Geriatric Onset Laryngeal Paralysis Polyneuropathy. It was true he had many of the symptoms. I even compared his bark of November to his bark earlier in the year and he clearly was straining and had a higher pitch.

However, I didn’t bring up GOLPP with his vet when I took him in. I did show her the video of him hacking and wretching. On that day, November 15^th, 2017, he had gained still several more pounds since she had last seen him in late September. Again, we knew he’d been inactive, so while we noted the weight gain, that was the extent of it. As had always been the case, his bloodwork was “unremarkable” and the doctor had always presumed relative health because of his record of utterly normal bloodwork all of his twelve years.

X-rays showed nothing remarkable. His heart was perhaps slightly enlarged but not greatly. He is a large, geriatric dog, so it isn’t unusual for him to have some slight enlargement. His lungs were clear. There were no obvious spots in his belly. His bowels, etc. looked normal. While he looked a bit heavier than normal, he still had a waist. He didn’t look unhealthy, just fatigued, and clearly he was struggling to breathe comfortably. There was some possibility he had a “dense” area on his trachea that might have indicated infection or abnormal cell growth. The doctor prescribed antibiotics to see if this would calm down the cough. If after a few days he had no relief, we would go from there. Ming was cleared for travel to Dallas, approx. 250 miles away, for a 24-hr. stay.

When we left Saturday morning, Ming was reluctant to get into our truck. There have been times when he has hesitated in the past. This was different. He just sat on the driveway and refused. This should have been a giant red flag waving, but again, we assumed his hips were hurting. We lifted him in and I gave him his pain meds. He had a coughing fit halfway to Dallas, but calmed down after a short time.

We had only been in Dallas about seven hours when I saw something odd about Ming. His stomach looked unusually swollen and when he stood, he arched his back slightly.

He continued to pant heavily with activity. I panicked and thought, “Bloat!” We helped him into a family member’s sedan and rushed him to a nearby 24-hour emergency vet where he was taken back immediately for x-rays.

Thankfully, he was not suffering from bloat. Unfortunately, we had only a vague understanding of what was happening. His heart rate was elevated and the distension of his stomach was caused by ascites, or fluid in his abdomen. (We can only guess the fluid “hid” in his tissues for some weeks before filling his abdomen). Once again, x-ray showed that his heart was slightly enlarged but not excessively. X-ray also showed the same slightly dense area of the trachea and some dense areas in the abdomen. More tests would have to be run to determine what was happening in those areas and what was causing the elevated heart rate.

Fast forward through some major worry and heavy decision making to Monday and a trip to first his regular vet where 850 ccs of fluid were drained from his abdomen (leaving still many behind) while we gave him oxygen and got him an appointment with an internist in Houston. The internist did the necessary tests to discover that Ming has a bad mitral valve and atrial fibrillation. It remains true that his heart is not grossly enlarged but only slightly. It also remains true that we are uncertain as to what, if anything, the dense area on his trachea means, if the fluid in his abdomen is solely caused by the heart disease, and how well medication will control his problem.

He hasn’t coughed since he came home Tuesday. He breathes normally for the most part. He is back to sleeping and snoring normally and, while still somewhat weak, is trying more often to get on the couch and is more stable on his feet. He is nine pounds lighter than he was on Sunday. We have a somewhat guarded prognosis at the moment and he sees the cardiologist in a few days.

There are a few suggestions we want to pass on from this experience:

1. Don’t make assumptions about your pet’s (or a family member’s) health based on given/expected circumstances. I based all my initial decisions regarding Ming’s health on my belief that his behaviors were in response to his hip problems and his age and did not consider he might be otherwise ill until it was almost too late.
2. Pay attention to their emotional and behavioral changes. Ming was behaving differently in sometimes subtle ways that I saw as quirky when in fact they were signs of distress.
3. Pay close attention to physical changes even if they seem harmless. When they suddenly gain weight, lose hair, or start breathing/barking/snoring/walking differently, consider that it might be something worth checking into. I could have saved Ming at least two weeks of discomfort, and possibly more, had I realized these things were not “just aging.” I am, however, thankful that I saw the expanding belly when I did.

   

4. My Momma once told me, when I was going through a particularly horrid time in my life, “Make the most you can of the time you have with the ones you love.” Needless to say, we are holding our little, old man close. We are thankful we have him for a little while longer.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate the holiday.

Last Updated on December 28, 2022 by Lee Ellis