After five and a half years with us, I am sad to report that we lost our dog Rusty on February 9th. Rusty was a rescue who had had an extremely rough life until he came to us. As a stray he had been beaten severely enough that he was deaf. During routine vet visits we discovered that he had been shot and still had several pieces of buckshot in his body. He lived the life of a king at our house.
In February of 2008 Rusty was diagnosed with Leukemia and had been on a chemo regimine since. Friday two weeks ago he started sneezing really bad. I gave him Benadryl assuming it was allergies but it didn't help. He continued sneezing Saturday and Sunday so my dad was able to take him to the vet for us on Monday, February 8th. The vet called and said that his platelets were low and they wanted to keep him overnight to give him fluids and for observation. The following day I talked with the vet and she thought it would be best for him to spend the night at the emergency clinic and see his specialist the next morning.
I went to pick Rusty up that Tuesday afternoon to transport him to the emergency vet and when I saw him my heart just broke. They had to carry him to the car because he was so weak and sick.
At the EV they ran another blood panel and things were even worse. They said we could try to treat him but there was no guarantee it would work and it would be very intense. I prayed about it and finaly decided that it would be very selfish of me to put Rusty through that and ultimately decided to give him the gift of euthanasia. It sucks and never gets easier.
We are missing him terribly but know that he is happy and whole again and will be waiting on us at the Rainbow Bridge.
