Thursday

Wheeeeee Doggy

Our poor dog, Hank, has been in varying degrees of pain for the last 6 years or so. He has hip dysplasia and elbow dysplasia, as well as arthritis and a number of other medical problems. When he was first diagnoses with the hip dysplasia he was placed on Rimadyl, a canine pain reliever, and it did wonders. It got him up off the floor, where he mostly curled up in a ball, refusing to move, and moving again.

It also destroyed his liver.

He took the Rimadyl for a couple of years, until his liver was so bad he couldn’t take anything for pain other than a Maalox-coated aspirin. That’s kind of like giving someone aspirin for the pain after major surgery. It doesn’t really help.

So today we took him to a new vet here. We kept putting it off because we were both honestly afraid that we’d get him there, the vet would look at him and say “Sorry, he’s in too much pain… the kinder thing would be to euthanize him.” Procrastinating was selfish, we know that. But after a barf fest last night, we knew we had to take him.

Go ahead, slap me around a few times, I deserve it. While we were waiting, afraid he was seeing his last days, a new doggy pain reliever hit the market, one that his liver will clear. Deramaxx is sort of like a canine Celebrex… it should give him significant relief. I doubt it’ll turn him into a puppy again, but at least he should be able to peel himself off the floor without it being a Major Effort, and maybe he won’t spend so much time licking sore elbow joints.

I thought it was worth mentioning, in case anyone else out there has a dog in a similar situation…

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