Rolling Dog Farm Blog

We had to put old, blind Frasier to sleep today.  This elderly fellow had come to us just about a year ago from a shelter in Illinois.  We knew he had heartworms when we had agreed to take him.  Only after he arrived did we learn he was also in right-sided heart failure.  And there was more.  Frasier had pulmonary hytertension, ascites (fluid build-up in the abdomen), and allergic airway disease.  If all that wasn’t bad enough, he had a yeast infection that made his skin and hair oily and stinky.  He was, as we described him then, a medical disaster.  The least of his problems was his blindness!

With excellent medical care, we went to work on this old boy.  We restored his heart and pulmonary functions to safe levels (although he remained on multiple heart medications right up to the end), eliminated the fluid build-up, got the allergic airway disease into remission, and successfully treated him for heartworms, too.  We were still treating the yeast infection when Frasier suddenly started to go downhill in the last few weeks.  He began losing weight, seemed listless, just didn’t look right.

We took him back to our specialist for another examination last week.  On ultrasound we found he had developed a thyroid tumor AND a giant spleen tumor.  The thyroid tumor had engulfed the carotid artery that supplies his brain with blood and two major nerves.  Surgery to remove the thyroid tumor alone would be very tricky and full of risks for an old dog like Frasier with his history of medical problems.  As for the spleen tumor, we wouldn’t even know how far the cancer had spread until we opened him up.  We might find it was already too late.

There was no point in doing only one of the surgeries.  We’d have to do both.  After consulting at length with our specialist about the risks and likely outcomes, we decided not to put Frasier through this. 

It turned out that nature had already taken its course anyway.  In the past couple of days Frasier had begun shutting down.  He stopped eating.  No amount of cat food or other usual ‘lick-the-bowl-clean’ yummy stuff could entice him to eat more than a tablespoon or two.  He lost all interest in anything.  Yesterday we decided the time had come.  I took the photo of Frasier this morning, before we loaded him in the truck for the last ride to town.  Sadly, this is how he had looked for the past couple of weeks. 

We had brought Frasier through a lot in the year he was here, and we know he enjoyed his time just hanging out being an old dog.  We’re glad we could give him that.  Bless his heart.