Post by Kit on Sept 20, 2014 9:43:02 GMT -5
Nick has been acting different for a few weeks now... nothing bad, just different/odd. We have bedrooms on one end of the house, a doggie door in our room, and a deck that runs the full length of the house to a sliding door in the family room. He sleeps in the room across the hall from our room. When I call him for meals, instead of coming down the hall, he'll go thru our room, out the doggie door, down the deck and wait in the sliding door. Or he'll go out the doggie door, and lay at the sliding door until it's open, then down the hall, out the doggie door, and wait and the sliding door again....we've left him out as long as 45 minutes and he just waits. Day or night, he'll do the same thing.
If I enter a room, he'll get up and leave. Doesn't matter what room if he is in it and I come in, he will leave. But when he sees me, he wags is tail and greets me.
A couple months ago, we had the dogs at the school to play, he started limping, but was fine the next day. A week ago, DH & I took him for a walk around the block (our blocks are about the size of 2 city blocks) half way thru, he started limping, the further we went, the worse it got. We had a little hill to walk down that I ended up carrying him down. He was fine the next day, but I went ahead and made him a vet appointment.
I had Thursday off work for other appointments, so I made him an appointment.
Wednesday morning, he was fine. Wednesday evening, he was LAME, no heat or swelling to be found. Didn't worry too much since I already had the appt. Thursday morning, there was some swelling and he could hardly walk. The swelling continued to get worse, and some bruising was visible.
X-rays were clean. ( was hoping for a shoulder dislocation) Did blood work, clean. Took him back Friday morning for needle biopsy. Needle biopsies didn't show anything.
So, after talking with the vet, we ruled out spider bite. No bite mark and the history of lameness ruled that out.
POSSIBLE soft tissue injury. But again, given his history, doubtful...this is a dog that, a few years ago, hit the door jam, dented the wall, and never slowed down.
So, given his history, we're leaning towards hemangiosarcoma. Vet is thinking it's causing a blockage that isn't allowing proper blood flow and that is causing the swelling.
He has a hemangiosarcoma tumor removed from a hind leg 3-4 years ago. He has a small lump on his shoulder that looks EXACTLY like the one his leg, and we've just found another one on his hip. The vet found two other tiny new skin tags, which is how the first one showed up. She also found 3 unusual blister looking things on his pen*is.
We've decided not to treat cancer, just keep him comfortable. He is on some pretty heavy drugs for the weekend to try to get the swelling down and I'll talk to the vet on Monday to see where we go from here.
The photo was taken Friday morning right before he went back to the vet.
If I enter a room, he'll get up and leave. Doesn't matter what room if he is in it and I come in, he will leave. But when he sees me, he wags is tail and greets me.
A couple months ago, we had the dogs at the school to play, he started limping, but was fine the next day. A week ago, DH & I took him for a walk around the block (our blocks are about the size of 2 city blocks) half way thru, he started limping, the further we went, the worse it got. We had a little hill to walk down that I ended up carrying him down. He was fine the next day, but I went ahead and made him a vet appointment.
I had Thursday off work for other appointments, so I made him an appointment.
Wednesday morning, he was fine. Wednesday evening, he was LAME, no heat or swelling to be found. Didn't worry too much since I already had the appt. Thursday morning, there was some swelling and he could hardly walk. The swelling continued to get worse, and some bruising was visible.
X-rays were clean. ( was hoping for a shoulder dislocation) Did blood work, clean. Took him back Friday morning for needle biopsy. Needle biopsies didn't show anything.
So, after talking with the vet, we ruled out spider bite. No bite mark and the history of lameness ruled that out.
POSSIBLE soft tissue injury. But again, given his history, doubtful...this is a dog that, a few years ago, hit the door jam, dented the wall, and never slowed down.
So, given his history, we're leaning towards hemangiosarcoma. Vet is thinking it's causing a blockage that isn't allowing proper blood flow and that is causing the swelling.
He has a hemangiosarcoma tumor removed from a hind leg 3-4 years ago. He has a small lump on his shoulder that looks EXACTLY like the one his leg, and we've just found another one on his hip. The vet found two other tiny new skin tags, which is how the first one showed up. She also found 3 unusual blister looking things on his pen*is.
We've decided not to treat cancer, just keep him comfortable. He is on some pretty heavy drugs for the weekend to try to get the swelling down and I'll talk to the vet on Monday to see where we go from here.
The photo was taken Friday morning right before he went back to the vet.
