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Late Night Ramblings
Feb. 24th, 2003 12:21 amHuh...it's been over a week since I last blogged. How time flies....
We're almost certainly going to have to put Coco down this week. She's a Black Lab we adopted from the Humane Society a couple of months ago. She was 10 years old, and clearly had been someone's pet--she's well trained--before being lost or abandoned. From the beginning she showed some signs of hip trouble. After lying down for any length of time, she had trouble getting back up on her rear legs. It wasn't too bad, though, and it certainly never interfered in her perpetual quest to play fetch.
But over the last two or three weeks she's deteriorated noticeably. She began having more trouble getting up from lying down. She also began balking occasionally when taken outside to "go potty." She'd stop at the top of the half dozen concrete stairs leading from the kitchen door to the sideyard, hesitating until coaxed to go on. Once or twice she'd start down and stumble or slide down as her rear legs failed her. Now she sometimes has trouble getting _up_ the stairs, occasionally stumbles when running (or even walking) now, and her hindquarters tend to sway when she's standing--she's obviously rapidly losing all strength in her rear legs.
And she's losing bladder and bowel control, having accidents in the house and looking distinctly embarrassed about it. We took her to the vet and they ruled out diabetes or other metabolic problems, though the vet confirmed that she's suffered nerve damage (which is getting rapidly worse) and that she is at least sometimes in pain. So the vet is going to have a neurologist contact us, but since even if we figured out the cause there isn't really much we could do (the nerve damage is permanent even if it didn't get any worse), I expect we'll forego any further treatment and simply put her down. Twoson (as my wife calls him in her blog) is unhappiest about it; he's become quite attached to her, but he's reluctantly concluding that it's the best thing to do.
We'll miss her. We're going to take plenty of photos of her, including some with Twoson, to remember her by--mostly for his benefit.
In other news....
I was at the video store the other day pricing some collections. First season of Angel on DVD, $45 or so. First season of Stargate: SG-1 on DVD, a little more. First season of Highlander on DVD, $89! Yowza! Not that I won't buy them all eventually, but still....
We're almost certainly going to have to put Coco down this week. She's a Black Lab we adopted from the Humane Society a couple of months ago. She was 10 years old, and clearly had been someone's pet--she's well trained--before being lost or abandoned. From the beginning she showed some signs of hip trouble. After lying down for any length of time, she had trouble getting back up on her rear legs. It wasn't too bad, though, and it certainly never interfered in her perpetual quest to play fetch.
But over the last two or three weeks she's deteriorated noticeably. She began having more trouble getting up from lying down. She also began balking occasionally when taken outside to "go potty." She'd stop at the top of the half dozen concrete stairs leading from the kitchen door to the sideyard, hesitating until coaxed to go on. Once or twice she'd start down and stumble or slide down as her rear legs failed her. Now she sometimes has trouble getting _up_ the stairs, occasionally stumbles when running (or even walking) now, and her hindquarters tend to sway when she's standing--she's obviously rapidly losing all strength in her rear legs.
And she's losing bladder and bowel control, having accidents in the house and looking distinctly embarrassed about it. We took her to the vet and they ruled out diabetes or other metabolic problems, though the vet confirmed that she's suffered nerve damage (which is getting rapidly worse) and that she is at least sometimes in pain. So the vet is going to have a neurologist contact us, but since even if we figured out the cause there isn't really much we could do (the nerve damage is permanent even if it didn't get any worse), I expect we'll forego any further treatment and simply put her down. Twoson (as my wife calls him in her blog) is unhappiest about it; he's become quite attached to her, but he's reluctantly concluding that it's the best thing to do.
We'll miss her. We're going to take plenty of photos of her, including some with Twoson, to remember her by--mostly for his benefit.
In other news....
I was at the video store the other day pricing some collections. First season of Angel on DVD, $45 or so. First season of Stargate: SG-1 on DVD, a little more. First season of Highlander on DVD, $89! Yowza! Not that I won't buy them all eventually, but still....
Posted with Livelizard