Molly Scared Me Tonight.....
I fear that my precious girl is slowing down here lately, and tonight she collapsed on the driveway when I took her out to potty. She has arthritis, but has done quite well on Galliprant for the past year. She had elevated ALT liver level about 3 years ago. It wasn't alarmingly high, so vet said it could be due to many things, including simply an aging liver. She said we'd keep an eye on it, so I pretty much forgot about it. The next year's recheck the level was a little higher, although still not extremely high, but vet wanted to start Molly on Denamarin. Again, Molly seemed to do well with that, & at her last recheck last year, the ALT had gone down some, although not all the way back to normal. 2 years ago, Molly was having a rough time with her arthritis. But this past year she seemed to do much better--until now. She is 13 1/2.
We have gradually decreased the distance of her walks until we'd just go down to the end of the road and back, but she seemed good with that. Our wonderful playtimes have also gotten much shorter--she still loves to play, but short sessions. If I play with her with her tennis ball in the house, she is content to go chase it once or twice, then go lay down with it on her pillow. Lately it has been cold out, so we have only done very short walks outside to potty, & haven't even walked down the road.
Lately, seems like she is panting quite often in the house, with little or even no exertion. And she sometimes makes these horrible dry-heaves noises--mostly in the evening. I've been putting 1/2 Galliprant & a Cosequin in with her evening meal, because I thought that one of them might be upsetting her stomach when I gave her the pills by themselves later in the evening.
About 3 weeks ago, Molly woke me up in the middle of the night making those dry heave noises & she got up & stumbled through the living room & collapsed before she got to the dining room. And she just laid there--she wasn't unconscious, but she didn't seem to want to move for quite awhile, either. I just sat with her & petted her & stayed with her until she seemed to have regained some strength & decided to get up on her own. I wondered maybe if the Galliprant and/or Cosequin might be making her feel sick & she is having acid reflux or something & choking on that.....It was so weird, she just got up making those awful gagging noises, & stumbled through the house until she just crashed......
Last evening DH took her out to potty after dinner & she kind of stumbled & ended up sitting down, & he said she seemed to just want to sit there for awhile until she regained her strength......
This evening I took her out to potty after her dinner, & we only went a little way up our driveway before she had to potty. I had my back turned to her & had my plastic bag out picking up the dog poo when I heard a noise behind me & I looked & she had just collapsed all the way down flat on her side. And she was just laying there not moving anything. She wasn't unconcscious because she was looking at me with her eyes, but she wasn't moving at all. I ran into the house to get DH & ran back out to her, & she was still just laying there on her side. She did begin to wag her tail a few times, although rather weakly. Dh said we'd have to get her lifting harness on her because we wouldn't be able to lift her. I ran to get it, but it was going to be awkward to try to get it on her with her laying flat--we were going to have to lift her somewhat to try to slide the straps under her. We thought maybe a couple of towels might work better, but again we were going to have to try to lift her a bit to try & get them under her. When we started to try, she just decided to go ahead & get up on her own. So she did, & seemed content to just stand there for a few minutes. We got the harness on her because I think we're going to be needing it now. We haven't needed to use it at all this year, until now.
I will call our vet first thing in the morning & see if she can fit Molly in tomorrow. I'm so afraid of what I know is coming eventually--if not very soon, then still much too soon. I've been through this before, but it never gets any easier. Not to mention these senior dogs only get so much sweeter, more loving and precious the older they get. My girl is getting ready to break my heart sometime soon......
I love this dog so much.....How I wish we were just starting out instead of ending up......