by Paddypix » 24 Jul 2014, 22:56
I'm afraid the latest on Charlie the little Shih Tzu is not good. He had to be put to sleep yesterday and my son and daughter-in-law are very sad but realise that they had no alternative. He has been getting progressively worse. They had discovered something wrong with his liver and a scan showed a shunt which apparently meant he had a congenital abnormality in his liver - an extra vein which was diverting blood. It could possibly have been fixed by an operation but it was touch and go whether it would work. Added to that was the degenerative brain condition which was a completely separate issue, and when he went to the vet yesterday morning for them to assess whether or not to do the operation, the vet noticed a severe deterioration in his brain function since he last saw him just a week ago, and advised them that the best thing for Charlie was to let him go. The night before last he had a very severe seizure in the middle of the night and bit my son Andrew on the stomach, quite badly, and he has been growling at visitors, and barking at nothing as if he was seeing hallucinations which apparently is a recognised symptom of his condition. The biting was a worry as it could have been one of the children, or one of their friends.
They were half prepared for the worst when he went to the vet this morning as they were going to put him to sleep while he was under the anaesthetic for the operation if what they found was worse than they thought, but the vet phoned my daughter-in-law to say that he didn't advise putting him through the traumea of the operation, and she went up to sign the forms and hold Charlie while they gave him the jab. It only took a quarter of what they would normally have used so he was far down as it was.
It's just awful as he was such a lovely little character, full of fun and so friendly until this illness took over. He was not quite three years old and the vet really felt that they had done as much as they could and there was no alternative.