Early on Saturday morning when we let the dogs out, Alayne noticed Briggs, our blind and wobbly Beagle, kept falling over after he did his business. He'd been standing up normally at first, but he was suddenly struggling. Briggs was unsteady at the best of times, but he could always get up and stand again, even if he swayed back and forth a bit. On Friday night he had seemed fine, had eaten his dinner with gusto, and had been wobbling around the living room.
Alayne went over to help him, and saw that his front feet were knuckling over when she tried to stand him up. He kept going limp whenever she picked him up. So Alayne brought Briggs inside and set him in front of the water bowl in the living room. She went back out to find me and told me something was wrong. After we finished letting the dogs out, I went inside and found Briggs still by the water bowl. I picked him up and he went limp. I carried him over to a bed and did a simple neuro exam to see what the issue was with his feet. Sure enough, his front feet knuckled over every time I moved them, and he couldn't bring them back into position.
I asked Alayne to get a thermometer, and a minute later we were shocked to see it register 105.2°. I did it again, and got 105°. Yikes. I asked Alayne for a different thermometer, just in case the first one was off, but the second themometer read 105.4°. I called our vet clinic in Whitefield to tell them we had an emergency and were on the way in. Alayne went to clear snow off the truck and warm up the engine while we got the back seat ready for Briggs.
A short while later I was at the clinic, where Dr. Chris Plumley and vet tech Kim C. were waiting for us. I explained Briggs' medical history and everything he had been through. They also got a 105.4° reading, and during the physical exam Chris thought Briggs was uncomfortable when he palpated his lower abdomen. Chris told me that the best case scenario would be an "opportunistic, severe and overwhelming infection" of some sort — i.e., at least something treatable — but he feared it was more likely to be a tumor. I asked whether I should rush him to the critical care clinic in Burlington, Vermont, where our internal medicine specialist is, and Chris thought that would be where Briggs could get the best intensive care given his condition.
After giving him some injections for pain, Chris and Kim hooked Briggs up to an IV drip so I could give him fluids during the trip to Burlington. I drove home to pick up some things for the road trip and also so Alayne could see him one more time. I didn't know how this was going to end, but I didn't have a good feeling. Briggs has always been one of the very special ones, and Alayne and he were incredibly close. I wanted her to have some quiet time alone with him. While I gathered my things, she sat in the back seat of the truck with Briggs, talking to him and making over him. I took the photo above of Briggs just before leaving for Burlington.
At the emergency clinic, the bad news came very quickly. After the attending vet took X-rays, a radiologist also did an ultrasound, and both sets of images revealed multiple malignant tumors engulfing Briggs' liver and colon. The vet told me Briggs' "entire abdomen is riddled with tumors." Both she and the radiologist believed there was no treatment possible, and they recommended we euthanize our little Beagle that afternoon.
My eyes filled with tears. The vet asked me, "Have you done this before?" I paused, and finally said, "Way too many times." But I told her I would need to call Alayne and talk with her first.
So I called Alayne and broke the news to her, and soon we were both crying. I told her I would call her back when it was over. A few minutes later the vet returned to the room, syringes in hand. One was to flush the catheter Briggs already had in his arm, the second was a sedative, and the third was the euthanasia drug itself. The vet had barely started pushing the plunger on the euthanasia syringe when I felt Briggs slip away. He was, I could tell, ready to go.
He had come to us just under three years ago, with painful bulging eyes, and needed surgery for them. But then we found out he had kidney disease from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever which had never been treated, and we learned it was the Spotted Fever that had caused his blindness and the neurological damage that made him wobbly.
Briggs had, it was clear, been through a lot. And his twin disabilities made him one of the most physically compromised animals we've cared for over the years. But none of that ever kept him down or depressed, and he was as loving and spirited as any dog we've ever had. Indeed, Briggs thought he was the quintessential ladies' man, and no amount of rebuffs from the fairer sex could convince him otherwise.
We had hoped to have this special little guy a lot longer than three years, but three years was all we were destined to get.
Goodbye, wobbly boy. We will always miss you.
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