Hoping for the best(5 year old female GSD)
 

Hi everyone. Just joined this website. I will give you the brief history of our 5 year old female GSD. We purchased her a week after we for married. She was 12 weeks old. It's been a bumpy ride with her (health)... The lady we bought her from is a very irresponsible GSD breeder. It was our first dog purchase, so we learned the hard way. We were lied too, etc etc etc. She def knew this was our first time purchasing a dog and she took full advantage of us. Took us 2 years to get the papers and I don't think they are the right papers. The lady couldn't even remember which dog we purchased. At 2 years old, she was favoring her left hip. We took her in and had everything scanned. As a 2 year old GSD, her X-Rays were of a 15 year old GSD. She has hip and elbow dysphasia. She is a wonderful dog. We have a 4 year old and 10 month old son. She is VERY good with children. She is very protective of her pack (our family) ....Her ball drive is off the charts. She has had a few flare ups due to her dysphasia, but nothing major yet.

We just enclosed out patio and turned it into a playroom for our children. This was about 2 weeks ago...Only took the weekend to so this. Starting about a week ago, Meeka started peeing in our living every night. This was very unusual. She is very good at holding it if she has too....This was happening every night...Not just one accident, 2-3...and a large amount. We first thought she was upset that we took her patio away....Her ball play sessions were still normal and still are. She has crazy drive....Her ball never leaves her side. Yesterday I was in the living room and she squatted right in front on me and peed on the floor. I knew something wasn't right. Even at night, she would come to our bedroom and pace the floors, or let us know she had to go....Past week, none of this....

My wife took her in today at 4pm. Our vet is a former GSD owner/breeder. He knew something was up by her eyes and gums. They had a lot of yellow in them. How me and my wife didn't catch this, I don't know. I thought she had a UTI personally. I was way wrong....They ran her blood and it is off the charts. Her white blood count is 47,000, her Liver enzymes are a 10.0(I think .9 is normal, I might have some of these number mixed up) ....He called us about 2 hours ago to give us the test results. They have her on 2 antibiotics, pumping a lot of fluid in her, catheter(sp?)..... He said it could be cancer, acute liver failure, kidney failure, or a bad infection. If she doesn't respond to the antibiotics, it's probably one of the worker ones. Her coordination is still normal, her ball drive is still normal. She also vomited twice during the week of abnormal events. We noticed she wasn't eating much and had very little vowel movement. We are hoping for the best. She is a part of our family and only being 5 years old, she is way too young to go. I have no idea how to explain this to my 4 year old if she happened to not pull through. My wife is a wreck. She is a stay at home mom, so she spends everyday with Meeka. We are going up there at 10am tomorrow to see her and our vet is going to go over all the bloodwork with us in more detail. He said her charts look like a shotgun pattern. He is hoping she responds to the antibiotics.

One other thing I can't shake. My next door neighbor is very hard to live next too . She hates my dog. I won't go into detail about her, but I've caught her taking pictures of my backyard (I have no idea why).... There is a rain runoff "ditch" behind my backyard. A lot of traffic goes through there. Meeka barks and lets us know when there is someone back there. I'm glad she does this. My neighbor is not. Meeka sleeps inside at night time. She has called the police on us several times due to Meeka barking. Police tell her it's during the middle of the day, and not during the cities "quiet time". The told her each time, our dog wasn't a nuisance or a problem. They told her she would have to file a civil complaint if she wanted to go anywhere with it. So far she hasn't. It's in the back of my head that this could of been caused by chemicals. Actually, it was my first thought. Hard to picture anyone doing this, but you just have to know this lady to understand.

I thought I would share everything going on. I'm sure I will need some advice along the way if she doesn't pull through.. As in, buying a new puppy, how long to wait, what to tell my 4 year old, etc....This is my first post on this forum. But, I've read a lot of information on here throughout the years. Please pardon any missing words or grammar problems....I typed this up on the go. I hope I can get some people to weigh in on this.

:)

when i got to the paragraph "one thing i can't shake", goose-bumps ran all up and down my arms. you say meeka sleeps inside at night time. is she left alone out in your yard at other times? does she live outside in the daytime? i would be very concerned about the neighbor. actually sometimes your "first thought" is your intuition speaking to you.

ordinarily i would not say this unless you had already lost your dog...but since you brought it up already yourself, i just want to say please don't buy, rescue. there are so many wonderful dogs in need.

I would tell your vet the neighbor concerns and have the vet tests for any kind of poisoning. I wouldn't trust your neighbor either....

Is your GSD on any kind of pain meds like Rimadyl for the hips?? They could be the cause of the liver problems. Although your vet should be running tests through the year to make sure everything is ok......

Hope everything turns out ok....

(edit) O.P You should put this thread in the health section. You will get a lot more reply's about what could be wrong. There are a lot of knowledgeable people in here....

Hope she responds to treatment, sounds like she has such a loving family that stands behind her. I have often wished we lived on a piece of land that at least there werent people or other animals just right on the other side of the fence.

Back in September my girl was real sick. She just turned a year and gave me quite a scare. Her eyes were so bloodshot that it scared me pretty bad, she had a temperature, wasn't chasing the cats, wasn't pooping and her white blood cell count was really high. They tested her for everything and nothing came back positive. She returned to normal after a couple days on the antibiotics...they never found out what was wrong, but they went with an infection, but didn't know what was affected. She had every test possible and xrays. I pray that everything turns out good for you. I kept going back to poison with mine too, someone put squirrel poison down and a couple dogs died by me. Voice your concerns and let them run whatever tests are necessary.

I would definately be concerned about that neighbor too. And I agree with Katieliz, that if that was one of your gut instincts, well.....

I really hope everything turns out for her. She is still so young, and make sure to tell the vet about your concerns about the neighbor...it may give them something else to consider. Keep a very close eye on her... :(

Please call the vet ASAP and let them know your concerns about your neighbor.

I am hope you are amazed at her turnaround - antibiotics and fluids can do amazing things.

But do call your vet about the idea of poison now - they will want to add something like Vitamin K and be sure not to give her something like Cerenia.

I made a wish for your doggie on my wishing jar

we are all concerned about meeka. please update when you can. thoughts are with you.

My dads delivery guy\'s pup was supposedly poisoned by a neighbor. Can you imagine a grown truck driver crying? I almost choked over it.

I am sending good health vibes to Meeka. Please keep us posted on her condition.

On a positive note, one of my pups ate meat that had been tossed out on our walk trail. I suspect it was poisoned because she got sick. She recovered fully from it...