Expert: Delores Beck - 2/6/2009

Question
I noticed a limp in my dog on Tuesday (note that she was walking). We kept an eye on her and ensured that she got rest. On Wednesday she yelped in pain and snapped when we picked her up. We brought her to the 24 hour animal hospital and the young vet poked and prodded her to find the cause of pain. He put extreme pressure on her lower back and decided that it was her disc. Immediately following that visit, she could no longer walk and had paralysis in her two hind legs. Does it normally happen that quickly? He instructed us to take her home and keep her in a crate to avoid strenuous movement. At 2am she woke up crying and when I went to pick her up she bit me (out of character, i assume due to her pain) and then released her bowels uncontrollably. I rushed her back to the hospital where the same vet told me my options were surgery (highly expensive and not guaranteed to be safe) or put her to sleep (which he recommended). He assured me that xrays were not necessary due to the severity of the herniated disc. She was four years old and put to sleep this morning at 4am. Do the sequence of events seem right to you, or should I have done something else? My dog was walking when I brought her to see the doctor and paralyzed immediately after.

Answer
I'm so sorry.  You must be absolutely devastated to lose a 4 year old so suddenly.  I do know how you're feeling and the temptation is to go over and over everything to try and understand what went wrong - what you possibly could have/should have done - was the medical treatment correct, etc.

What I'd like you to hear is that you did everything you could for your much loved dog.  That's all any of us can do.  Now you're suffering very much from having to make the decision to let her go...to not allow her to be in pain.  Please don't torture yourself
but rather allow yourself to grieve the loss.  Easier said than done, I know.

You have my total sympathy, Lisa and I wish I had the perfect words that would comfort you.
Delores