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My dog is sick.
(BTW, why are you "sick as a dog" but "healthy as a horse"?)
He was born with some kind of heart defect. We knew that when we adopted him.
In the past, we've noticed that, while he starts out enthusiastic, he often seems to very rapidly become fatigued. There were other little things, here and there.
A few days ago, he started following Mom around, distressed about something, but unable to communiccte what it was. Two days ago, he started coughing. A lot. It seemed to settle down, for the most part, but the morning, he was coughing again. Mom took him in to the vet. They were going to dismiss it as a passing infection, but Mom mentioned the heart thing and they decided to do a little more testing.
Turns out his heart is enlarged (always new he had a big one...) and there's fluid building up in his lungs.
We're going to do more testing and they've got some medicines to try, but basically... he has a bad heart. Which might be okay for a long time yet, if we're careful with him. Keep him moderately active, but don't let him overexert. Try to get him to lose some weight. Keep him on the meds. That sort of thing. Or... the coughing developed really quickly. It's possible that things could slide rapidly downhill without warning.
For now... the medicine he has seems to be helping some. He's not coughing as much. Starts to cough pretty quickly, though, once he starts moving around. A flight of stairs, a short walk, the dance he does when he sees his leash. And he tires out even more quickly than usual.
Hopefully, that'll get better with treatment. And we'll just have to take it easy with him. We'll see what the next round of testing says, and maybe see another vet (a specialist, perhaps).
Keep your paws crossed.
(BTW, why are you "sick as a dog" but "healthy as a horse"?)
He was born with some kind of heart defect. We knew that when we adopted him.
In the past, we've noticed that, while he starts out enthusiastic, he often seems to very rapidly become fatigued. There were other little things, here and there.
A few days ago, he started following Mom around, distressed about something, but unable to communiccte what it was. Two days ago, he started coughing. A lot. It seemed to settle down, for the most part, but the morning, he was coughing again. Mom took him in to the vet. They were going to dismiss it as a passing infection, but Mom mentioned the heart thing and they decided to do a little more testing.
Turns out his heart is enlarged (always new he had a big one...) and there's fluid building up in his lungs.
We're going to do more testing and they've got some medicines to try, but basically... he has a bad heart. Which might be okay for a long time yet, if we're careful with him. Keep him moderately active, but don't let him overexert. Try to get him to lose some weight. Keep him on the meds. That sort of thing. Or... the coughing developed really quickly. It's possible that things could slide rapidly downhill without warning.
For now... the medicine he has seems to be helping some. He's not coughing as much. Starts to cough pretty quickly, though, once he starts moving around. A flight of stairs, a short walk, the dance he does when he sees his leash. And he tires out even more quickly than usual.
Hopefully, that'll get better with treatment. And we'll just have to take it easy with him. We'll see what the next round of testing says, and maybe see another vet (a specialist, perhaps).
Keep your paws crossed.
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See ya,
Anna.
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