Counting down the days.

Not only are we counting down the days until Christmas & enjoying all the fun that goes along with the season of giving & good will, we're unfortunately counting down the days that we'll have Diggitty with us.

Unfortunately he's in bad shape & is on palliative care with us at the moment. It seems he has two large masses in his tummy which appear to be on his liver & probably his spleen. I've known his health has been in decline for the past 12 months & especially in the last 6 months. He's dropped a lot of muscle tone on his hips & lost weight - his ribs & backbone are sticking out & you can feel them when you pat him, however he has a distended belly further back.

We took him to the vet on Friday arvo & determined all of this. The vet explained that what often happens is a dog will develop a tumour on the spleen & this will have bleeds occasionally which cause the dog to exhibit the types of symptoms that our Diggitty is having - weak, listless, nauseous, shallow breathing, etc. If it is a minor bleed, it may repair & the dog will recover - this must be what happened in September when we were camping. Eventually, without intervention, the dog will suffer a major bleed which will kill it.

We could ultrasound & biopsy to see if the tumours are benign or malignant. If they're malignant, chances are they've already spread. If they're benign, they could be surgically removed, however they're large & he's almost 13 so the stress on his body would probably be too much for him to survive the operation anyway.

Aside from that his hips are weak & painful, and he has a nasty cough which is indicative of a cardio/pulmonary disease.

So palliative care it is. If he recovers in the next few days, well & good, & we'll have him around to love a bit longer. But so far he's not much improved, despite the painkillers, so chances are we'll be taking him in for a gentle release between now & Christmas. It's very hard to know if we're being selfish in keeping him here, or if we are not giving him enough opportunity to recover. This is all made more difficult with the public holidays upon us & knowing that veterinary assistance is not readily available throughout.

He's being spoilt rotten with lots of hugs, kisses, pats, chicken breast, ham, cuddles and generally given a lot more attention than he's used to over the last few years. He even slept inside last night, which turned out to be a mistake as I woke every 2 hours to see if he was okay & then he had a wee accident because he can't stand up on our floors unless he's on a mat as they're too slippery. But he did love being inside & slept right next to my side of the bed.

This end of pet ownership truly sucks. It's the hardest thing ever. However, I know I can be strong for him when the time comes. I'll release him from his pain with peace, dignity, love & security.