Best wishes to all of you, man. Your first post had me very sad - something like that would be devastating and words escape me. To see that she seems to have bounced back is encouraging. I sure hope that it was something temporary and that she feels better for a long time to come.
Do you think that maybe she got bitten or ate something that caused that reaction?
I don't think it's anything she ate, this time. We had another incident back in spring when I was traveling for work and she wouldn't eat, couldn't keep anything down, etc. So I had my mom haul her into the vet and the vet found nothing wrong. Only afterwards did my wife tell me that she had barfed up something really gross. So that time we think she ate something that caused a blockage until she barfed it up.
This time, her hind hips have been getting weaker and weaker with falling more frequently on slicker surfaces. It's harder and harder for her to get up regardless of what type of surface she is laying on. She's just getting old. Over the last two months, she also has been having bladder control issues. Like fall down and the bladder empties. It's been getting worse. Blood work was inconclusive and she just finished up a course of antibiotics in case of a UTI. No improvement.
The other dog has been acting a lot more freaked out lately. So it's possible she has been having small seizures leading to the bladder issue. I've not actually seen her pee in the house, just found the result. I have seen her fall down outside and empty her bladder. She was acting weird this past weekend. Like totally a puppy. Super hyper, energetic, etc. So something could be going on in the brain.
I know she's nearing the end. Just trying to make her comfortable and trying to figure out when is the right time for "the injection."
I got her out of the humane society back in 1998. They figured she was less than a year old so born in 1997. I lived up in northern Minnesota about 10 miles from the Canadian border. The nearest McD's was 70 miles away. So nowhere. She used to drive me nuts with her energy. Finally I got mad, threw in the truck with my ATV, and drove to the trails along the border. Then I took off on the ATV and she chased after me. Look back and her tongue is hanging, eyes wide, and the biggest smile you could find on a dog. She was a runner! It got to be a regular deal for us. It would be about 5 miles at 25 mph before she would even begin to act tired. I used to walk her past the local school before work. She would try to scrape up the frog wafers off the road. Nothing like prying open her jaw to dig out a frog wafer. Then one day she found a half-eaten Taco Bell burrito. She was in heaven. That was a struggle to get her away from it.
Then when I lived in Iowa, our last place there was 20 acres. So she never left the yard. Just bummed out in the fields. It was a dog paradise there. She'd dig holes going after gophers, hunt chipmunks, etc. She loved it. She was quite the hunter. She'd catch mice in the house, moles in the yard, snakes, etc. Didn't matter. She almost nailed the neighbors cat one time. It never wandered over in our yard again after I saved it.
It used to be she would kill what she caught. But the last several years, she has been liking to eat it too. One 4th of July about 2 years back, we had just sat down to a lunch of grilled cheeseburgers. Yum! She walks in and promptly barfs up a baby bunny right on the kitchen floor. I got stuck cleaning it up. Ugh!
She's been a good dog for the most part. We have had our moments. But she was an alpha dog and too smart for her own good. Now she is white around the muzzle, mostly deaf, partly blind, and works to stand up. She's had a full life for sure.
