[Saturnalia]

Hi guys,i haven't posted here since i think 2016. My dog is now almost 8 years old and our vet caught early dcm on the ultrasound the other day after a checkup,but this is not the problem for now.We take it easy and he has no obvious symptoms rn.No cough,only slightly tired when climbing stairs,and that's it.

The problem is he has a benign but bothersome tumour of his left anal gland and cysts in his scrotum.The vet wants to spay him,but if he does so there is a higher chance of him passing on the table with dcm and he may potentially have some fecal incontinence even if the surgery is a success .He isn't even exacly thin anymore,he put on pounds in the last year of lockdown,i was working more,filling in for people who got covid etc so i had less time to walk him,and it turned him into a chunk...so i'm scared i might lose him.They puncured his tumour for analysis but they couldnt get a decent tissue sample and it bled so they tried at multiple sites and now it's a bloddy mess every time he leans on that side.
the vet wants us to make a decision soon and the first thing i did is put him on a dietary regime and ofc restricted food intake,no salt anymore etc. along with shorter frequent walks instead of long exhausting ones...

Anyhow,Seems he will have to have the surgery sometimes in the near future.I really don't know what to do,when to decide.I feel like i'll be potentially gambling with his life here.
Also
In these 8 years i also adopted a mistreated dobey girl that had lot of issues but is really sweet and clicked with my boy from the first day,and she got diagnosed with lymphoma a month ago so she's on prednisone because they think she isnt a good candidate for chemo due to liver infiltrates.Shes in partial remission,for now.

To update on my Dog after all these years

My boy he grew out of his crazy phase after about a year and became a lot calmer and even tempered,but still goofy.Nowdays he's a total sweetheart,and just wants to cuddle and shadow you around.
He still will try to steal something occasionally because he grew into a tall dog,but it's mostly the girl that tries to surf the counters the minute you leave the kitchen because she has the starving dog mentality still.She also opens doors so theres no hiding but in high places.
Btw i never did crate them and i moved to a house with a yard after a year so they had a lot more roaming room.

Sorry for the spelling errors btw

And,here's my dog tax

 

[MeadowCat]

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear this.

Are you working with a cardiologist? I would want to have the surgeon working closely with a cardiology team to determine the risks of surgery for your boy. There are different anaesthetics that can be used for dogs with DCM, but you would also want the cardiologist to assess how risky surgery is in the first place. It also sounds like there is discomfort from the tumor? It's such a hard call to make decisions like this - I really wish you the best of luck and I hope you have an excellent veterinary team to support you. We are lucky where I am to have a huge specialty center so we'd be able to have specialists coordinate a case like this.

 

[dobebug]

I can't add much to MeadowCat's post--I'm lucky too--we have several large specialty clinic's who can and will work with other specialists if necessary and there is also (for us) the vet school--not far away who will sometimes take on problems like this an put together a surgical team.

Is your boy on any meds for the cardiac issues?

And talk to your vet about the possibility of using a spinal block (instead of inhalent anesthesia)--they did that when the intact male belonging to a friend needed to be neutered--same kind of complication--he had diagnosed DCM and was on meds for it and no one wanted to try to do surgery on him with an inhalent or injectable.

I wish you the best of luck and will be thinking of you and both of your Dobes.

dobebug