I feel so bad about my dog.

[oesdog]

You guys all said you would be here for me - so I am trying to make sence of my feelings right now.

Let me start at the begining.
Murphy was a "rescued dog". He was going to be used for a stud dog at a puppy farm but the bit.ch he was to go with died and the folk decided not to proceed. So no use for the big guy anymore. He had spent his entire puppyhood locked in a shed.
He had no training at all. No toys or blanket or collor or food bowl, no grooming brush or anything of his own and he had never been on a lead. All they wanted were puppies and nothing more. But Murphy was a puppy he was only 18 months old. We brought him home and I loved him.
He bit DH when Dh tried to get him out of the car. But we put it down to him being afrade and determined to get on with things.
He never ate for about 4 days but when we finally got him to eat he showed that he had terrible food agression. But he also looked a whole lot happier.


We got him nutered and started lead training and did a great deal of work to stop his pulling. He was a powerful boy who would pull you into a road easily. I used to walk with my walking stick across his chest, everytime he would try to "pull ahead" I would put the stick infront of his chest and tap it. Then I would make him sit and wait until I chose to move off. We also did changing direction so that he had no idea where we were heading and then it was me taking him not him taking me for a walk. It was very intensive because by this stage he was in remedial puppy class having missed over a years education!
When we moved house we bought a place by the beach. Which gave great oportunity for him to walk off the lead but also to attend puppy classes. By this time he was just 2 yrs old - but we got him 6 months classes and he went in with the bigger puppies 18-24 month class. He was so overcome with "other dogs". He simply had not been socialized. So he would sit and cry like a baby. This would go on mostly the entire time of the class. We eventually got him to do some basic things, but he was unable to cope with all the other dogs. They scared him. We quickly realised he was a bully - but bullies are by there nature also renound cowards and my massive "baby dog" was a big wimpering ball of fluff! When the classes ended he should have gone up with the "big boys" but clearly this would never work so we reluctantly terminated class. 3 months after the new classes began without him DH found Gizzy dieing in the road.


For the first time in Murphy's life he had a friend!!!!!!! This little bundle was so sick and fragile I was worried because Murph was so big. But murph was sooo gentle loving and caring. He spent all of his days licking him and caduling the little man to live.
He did and they became inseperable. Over the next few years other dogs were added to his circle of friends. Sky the Collie and Rosie the whippet.


And Toby the jack-a-doodle


He also made an arch enemy in Teddy the cat who has been with us since he fell out of the ark.


Finally our lad grew up - he had friends and a home and a mum and dad that loved him.
Dad took him for long walks up the Mournes.


Mum just loved on him lots!

And of course everyone and all the dogs went to the beach together. Whatever the weather!


5 yrs passed and all was well and we were a family. Murphy was 7yrs old already!

This year we were really looking foward to the long summer days. We had been out walking a few times and Murph was growing out his hair. For once I was determined he would look like a dulux add. So I was buying bobbles and working hard to make him beautiful - er! We got his face and head and body and top of his legs looking well but he wouldn't let me brush his legs and feet. He never would - we think he used to get hit with the brush at his last home on the feet if he did not stay still.
One day we went out and he got very wet and cold. -It had rained a lot and Murphy didn't like the hair dryer. So that weekend we stayed in. But something was not right. Murph wasn't eating his food. He "loved his food"? On the Monday it was a nice day and so we thought we would take him out as he was probably just sulking over the wet days. But at the end of the road he suddenly nearly collapsed.
We decided to rush him to the vet. - Murphy was never ill. We had registered with a Vet when we moved in our nearest town which is 17 miles away. But once when we took the boys there the old Vet pulled their ear hair out and made them cry. So I didn't want to take them again. Instead I took the boys to the local vet who seemed kind and caring. They were a small village family practice not like the bigger place we had been at. DH said where will we take him to the big Vet or the local one? I looked at Murph and imediately said the quickest one to get to. 5 mins later we were at the local Vet.

He has a chest infection - nothing a good antibiotic course wont cure the vet said. - Oh no he got wet in full coat I thought stupid me!!!!!!! Then he said bring him back tomorrow as I want to check his heart rate again. So we took him back on the Tuesday. He was still not eating and so I told the vet this. He gave him a few more shots of something? We took him home with instruction to bring him again the next day. I was begining to worry? Why was he wanting to see him so much? We took him back on the Wednesday. The vet said we don't think he is responding as well as we would like and we are now thinking it is not the chest but the heart. He put him on heart tabs and told us to bring him back the next day. Thursday came and there was a little improvement and then back again on the Friday - the girl vet was there and told us that he seemed to be doing a bit better and with the tabs he was begining to turn the corner but she needed to see him the next day! As it was Saterday I took Murph myself DH was home caring for our son. Murph was looking a bit better so I breathed relief. Everyone in the Vet waiting room admired my big lad and he was very brave and good. The Vet looked him over and said his heart rate was up again. But she said they can have some bad days before they improve we just have to get the heart rate stabalized. She asked if he was drinking a lot. I said not any different from usual. Murphy had always been a bit of a camel. - On the Sunday he didn't look too good and I was back to struggling to hand feed him. By now I was begining to really worry. I took him back to the Vet on the Monday evening as the Vet said she needed to see him before the Wednesday. She looked him over and said he wasn't doing too good?

After all she said he is an old boy - WHAT ??? he is only 7 yrs old I said!!!!! Well its been a good age for a big dog to reach???? I was thinking where is this conversation going??? I said look I have been giving him these pills but he seems worse after I give them to him - should I be giving him these heart meds?( I lost my mum from heart failure 4 months back and DH has heart trouble, he has to have a third stent put in soon so I had every reason in the world to trust her with a heart issue didn't I?) She shrugged and said I think he will need to go on these stronger pills but I will try to keep the price down for you? I asked how much and she said these are £20 every 7 days and he will need them maybe for life and the others I said? He will need to keep on taking them for now and they are £23 every 10 days as well as the other pills on top - each vet visit was costing nearly £15 and I realised we had been there everyday for over a week. I toted the bill up and thought omg its over £200 already. Murphy was not insured because he was a rescue and there was no proper history. He was not seeming to be getting any better either? We were willing and able to pay every day vet bills. However £20 every 7 days and £23 every 10 days was out of our league if he would be on them for the rest of his life? She held out the pills and said do you want them or not? I said do you know what is wrong with Murphy. She replied give me £300 and I will tell you? I was shocked. I said thats a lot of money and she just said well I am running a business here you know! She didn't even know what was wrong with Murph and he had been going there for over a week? I said look I am going to talk to DH about this. Then I said what you were saying earlier about him reaching a good age? Tell me the truth, "am I flogging a dead dog here"? She replied well he has a heart problem your dog is going to die anyway!!! I left, and had to litterally lift Murph into the car one half of him at a time. We phoned the PDSA charity and due to DHs heart disability we were able to take Murph but the appointment was not until the Wednesday. I thought of the pills I had left at the Vets and I worried about them? why didn't I give her the money and take them?

On the Tuesday evening things looked much better Murph ate all the meat in his dinner bowl.( But now I remember the girl Vet gave him an injection to encourage him to eat) He must have been very hungry. First thing in the morning I checked on him. Imediately I knew it was bad. He struggled to stand and I put him to the yard but I had to go get him in. We got him into the car and hurried up to the PDSA at least I could get him the pills!!! But when we got there the vet looked at Murphy and said oh he is in a very bad way. He is very poorly. I have read what your vet faxed up - but I don't think anything is wrong with his heart. He examined him further. He said there is something much more sinister going on in there. Murphy most likely has an advanced tumor somewhere in the chest cavity. This has caused internal bleeding and pressure on his heart. This is why he has an elivated heart rate because he is bleeding into the chest cavity. He asked DH what his stools were like and DH said they were black - I remembered he had been sick the day before and there was dark orange in the stomach bile. I now realise it was blood. My baby had been bleeding to death for over a week while the vet was litterally cashing in on his pain. She had missed the bleed? HOW COULD SHE MISS THE DARN BLEED!!!!!!!??????? Why was I giving him heart tabs he didn't even need!!!!!!!??????? I was screaming inside???? What should we do I said? He was very nice and kind and he said I know you guys care about him a lot but he is very tired and in great pain. Right now he isn't going home whatever happens your not taking this dog out of here. What then I quivered .... Murph?????? Well he has a tumor in the chest believe me - I could scan him to confirm it for you but he is unlikely to survive the sedation. He is a very sick boy - you must make a choice> I wanted to scream give him a chance please but TUMOR was wringing in my ears .We looked at our boy and DH started to cry we have to do the right thing please put him to sleep Dh managed to say. Murph just lay on the floor with his head on DHs lap like he was releived and the vet put him to sleep while I held his paw and we both cried. He went so peacefully he wanted to leave. I started to cry again and DH was crying it was awful Murph was dead. The vet let us stay and then he said to me on the way out - you did the right thing.

But did I ????
I picked the wrong vet?
I gave him heart pills that may have thinned the blood and he already had a bleed - I paid HER to kill my dog and fed him the pills myself?
I didn't let him get scanned I just blindly trusted another vet - was it really a tumor?????? Could he have had a chance???

I feel so bad. He trusted me! I was supposed to protect him! I was his mummy!
I was supposed to get him help but I brought him death.

Tell me you guys be honest with me my baby is gone I am devistated.

MURPHY
( Age 7yrs. 3 months and 1 day)
03/04/2005 - 4/7/2012

Also Known as:
Murph, Murphy bot, The Muphalator, Murph the smurf, Nose with fur attached and The Woolly Mammoth.​

Oes

 

[ange92040]

I am so so sorry for your loss

please believe he had a good life with you and was happy you gave him a good life

 

[chippie]

I am so sorry for your loss. I had a similar situation, wrong vet, wrong diagnosis by the time I got a second opinion it was too late. It wasn't my fault I trusted a bad vet and its not your fault. I do however warn everyone I know how bad that vet is. You did the right thing. Your boy had a great life with you one he would not have had. Remember the good days forget the uglyness of what happened.

 

[satay]

I think you are a very caring person and i am sure murphy understood that you were doing all in your power to see if you could save him. Don't blame yourself for the first vet. I am guessing vets like doctors some times don't get it right no mater how well intended.. There is a million what ifs and did i do the wrong think when we have to put our beautiful mates to sleep (i know this first hand too). Trust that you did all you could with the information you had at the time to make the best decision for your mate murphy. I am sorry for your loss.

 

[Glenmar]

 

[Snowygirl]

 

[Gryphon]

I'm sorry for the loss of your dog, you did a good job raising him and giving him the life of a REAL dog instead of a breeding machine.

Here's a few things that might make you feel better: One, I would have done the same thing as you, going with the closer vet when he looked to be doing that poorly. It seemed to be an emergency, and you want him to be treated as fast as possible. Plus a longer car ride could have been painful for him, so don't fret that you went to the closer vet.

Two, he IS a large dog, and large dogs sadly do have shorter life spans than small breed dogs. I very much would not be surprised if the tumor/heart problems (it might have been a combination, so the first vet might have been partially correct) were age related. So you gave this scared unsocialized pup a good long life filled with people and other dogs that loved him. That is NOT bad life!

I am very sorry that the first vet treated you that way, that wasn't very empathic of her at all, and I'm very surprised she didn't look at/ask about a stool sample since that's a quick way to check for things like internal bleeding or digestive problems. In any case, you did what you could with what you had, and he knew you cared for him.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I am so sorry Oes, it's a heartbreaking thing to go through loosing a dog no matter the circumstances.

But you did the best that you could for Murphy with the information you had at the time, and that really is the right thing. It's the best that anyone can do, and the most that anyone can expect of themselves. Even in very clear cut cases where you know beyond the shadow of a doubt what's going on, there is always that feeling of guilt when you have to make the decision to free your friend of their pain and end their suffering.

The outcome may not have been any different with a different vet. I find it a little discomforting that any vet would prescribe any medication without running, or at least offering, diagnostic testing first, yet it happens frequently. There are some conditions that vets see so frequently that they are rarely wrong about the diagnosis and this can cause them to become complacent in how they treat patients that come in with those symptoms.

I don't know what heart pills the vet prescribed. But there are some medications that are given to heart patients that are also given to other patients with healthy hearts to treat similar symptoms. The pills may or may not have had any effect on Murphy's bleed. There's a good chance that some of the pills the vet prescribed would have been given even if she had known about his bleed.

Could a scan have revealed something other than a tumor? Possibly. Could he have had a chance? Maybe. However, anyone who works in the veterinary field for more than a few months develops a sense about how well a patent is likely to do just by looking at them when the come through the door. If the vet felt that he was so poorly that a scan to confirm the tumor was not the best way to spend your money, then chances are whatever he had was not something Murphy was likely to recover from. I work as a vet assistant, and while it is not my place to tell an owner that there is no hope and they should euthanize their pet I am also rarely wrong when I look at an animal that comes in doing poorly and think that I am looking at an animal that is not going to make it.

To bring death to one you love is the hardest, most devastating thing anyone will ever have to do. Even when it is the right thing. Even I, who knew that my old girl had ruptured her spleen and was bleeding to death, felt that pain of guilt as the vet gave her the final injection. I was fortunate that my decision was made clear, but I can only imagine how much harder yours must have been. You did not betray Murphy's trust, you protected him from prolonged pain and suffering in the only way that was available to you.

 

[oesdog]

I am so sorry Oes, it's a heartbreaking thing to go through loosing a dog no matter the circumstances.

But you did the best that you could for Murphy with the information you had at the time, and that really is the right thing. It's the best that anyone can do, and the most that anyone can expect of themselves. Even in very clear cut cases where you know beyond the shadow of a doubt what's going on, there is always that feeling of guilt when you have to make the decision to free your friend of their pain and end their suffering.

The outcome may not have been any different with a different vet. I find it a little discomforting that any vet would prescribe any medication without running, or at least offering, diagnostic testing first, yet it happens frequently. There are some conditions that vets see so frequently that they are rarely wrong about the diagnosis and this can cause them to become complacent in how they treat patients that come in with those symptoms.

I don't know what heart pills the vet prescribed. But there are some medications that are given to heart patients that are also given to other patients with healthy hearts to treat similar symptoms. The pills may or may not have had any effect on Murphy's bleed. There's a good chance that some of the pills the vet prescribed would have been given even if she had known about his bleed.

Could a scan have revealed something other than a tumor? Possibly. Could he have had a chance? Maybe. However, anyone who works in the veterinary field for more than a few months develops a sense about how well a patent is likely to do just by looking at them when the come through the door. If the vet felt that he was so poorly that a scan to confirm the tumor was not the best way to spend your money, then chances are whatever he had was not something Murphy was likely to recover from. I work as a vet assistant, and while it is not my place to tell an owner that there is no hope and they should euthanize their pet I am also rarely wrong when I look at an animal that comes in doing poorly and think that I am looking at an animal that is not going to make it.

To bring death to one you love is the hardest, most devastating thing anyone will ever have to do. Even when it is the right thing. Even I, who knew that my old girl had ruptured her spleen and was bleeding to death, felt that pain of guilt as the vet gave her the final injection. I was fortunate that my decision was made clear, but I can only imagine how much harder yours must have been. You did not betray Murphy's trust, you protected him from prolonged pain and suffering in the only way that was available to you.

Thanks for this.
What you said about the last Vet - I didn't have to pay for the scan or the Vet fees for that Vet at all so he wouldn't have taken that into account.( It was a charity attached to the Vet school) So the Vet had no personal interest in money etc. The vet did stand and watch Murphy while we were waiting to see him. So I guess he was already making up his mind as to what he thought was wrong. He already had all of the details of previous care from the local vet as I got the girl to fax it all up before we went. He said he always studied the care private Vets gave when folk came in. So he had already spent time looking over the notes etc. I guess a good vet would not have offered up euthanazia if it was not in the dogs best interest. I am so sad over it all. I do know Murphy, and I do know that he was very much a coward when it came to pain. So a long painful end would not have been one he would have liked. I am certain he was relieved when he finally lay his head down on his daddy's lap. - There was that look in his eyes, all he wanted was for the pain to stop. He just lay there. Because the heart had to work very hard to take the drugs round his system it took a long time for the heart to stop, The vet explained that it was because there was so little blood in him. But it wasn't bad because by that stage Murph was already asleep and out of pain he just lay down and died. Just lay down like any other day at home when he cuddled up on the sofa. It didn't look bad when he looked at me from his dads lap. It was like he was saying don't cry mum it's ok I have to go. It was nice he just fell asleep. I still felt bad though because I am his mummy and I should have helped him more? But I don't know what else I should or could have done? It was all so quick - it went from a simple chest infection that would only take an antibiotic to heal to a catastrophic bleed in the chest that caused him to die, how can that be??????

Oes

 

[Bunnylady]

Vets aren't infallible, and they can have a tough time making a diagnosis. Their patients can't tell them where it hurts, or how long it has been like that. Animals are great at masking pain; sometimes they suffer for a long time before it gets bad enough that they show signs. When the first vet saw Murphy, he was probably going with the simplest explanation for what he saw and what you could tell him you had seen. Vets often get accused of doing tests and other procedures just so they can charge for them. They also get a lot of owners that respond, "I can't/won't pay for that," when it comes to anything more than very basic care. I'm betting the first vet gave Murphy an antibiotic, and was hoping for a rapid improvement in the dog's condition to confirm his diagnosis. When Murphy didn't improve, that told the vet he was on the wrong tack, so he needed to go with a different explanation for what he was seeing. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had heart symptoms, so he treated for that. If the vet started with digitalin as a heart med, it slows the heart rate, but doesn't thin the blood, so it shouldn't have significantly contributed to the bleeding.

When Murphy continued to worsen, it became clear that there wasn't an easy explanation or an easy fix to what was going on. The second vet wasn't the most sympathetic, but you probably put her on the defensive when you suggested that the reason the dog was getting worse was the medication that they had given him. Even suggesting putting the patient down is admitting defeat, so she probably was feeling badly about it already. She knew that doing some imaging and bloodwork would give her more information about what was going on, but she knew those things aren't cheap. She also knew that this had already cost you quite a bit, and the eventual outcome of the dog's illness wasn't looking good. It's tough having to put a price tag on love, but people do it every day in the vet's office.

Oes, everybody involved in this had your dog's best interest in mind. While your heart wants to fight for your animal's life, there comes a time when that fight no longer makes sense, and all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. 7 years seems such a short time, but in a way you were lucky - Murphy was vigorous and very much himself until shortly before the end. When he went, he went quietly; that was his gift to you as well as your final gift to him. As long as there seemed to be some way to help him, you tried to help, and when it became clear that there was no way to make him better, you did what you had to do to end his suffering. Hopefully, your heart will heal soon, and you will accept that the choices you made were the only choices a loving owner could make.



For some reason, I'm reminded of Cisco:

Just days after my son was born, my Belgian Shepherd Cisco went "a bit off." We took him to the vet, but weren't willing to pay for a full-scale workup because we had major medical bills to pay (normal birth isn't covered by a lot of insurance policies, just "complications"). The vet had to guess at what was ailing him, as yours did, trying two or three different treatments. Less than 2 weeks after first showing symptoms, Cisco crawled under our back steps and died, without us ever knowing exactly what was wrong (our vet, like your last one, eventually diagnosed a tumor in the chest cavity). Cisco was a similar age to Murphy when he died. Cisco and his brother Bunsen were rescues, having been found abandoned and starving on an illegal dump site near our home at a little less than a year old. They were unholy terrors, but we loved them deeply and gave them the best lives we could. Funny how dogs like that can wrap themselves around your heart - after more than 15 years, I still miss those two.

Hugs