Affaire's Double Rainbow, "Dugan"

Dugan lived his life here with his sister Iris. He had a penchant for eating things - bedding, toys, rugs - pretty much anything he could rip up. For that reason, he and his sister lived in an indoor/outdoor kennel unless they were within my line of view. When he was 7, he started to show some signs of abdominal discomfort. His vet was not sure what was going on when she reviewed the x-rays so she kept him for observation that day. Later in the afternoon, when she took another x-ray, she did not like what she saw and said that she needed to go in and look to see what was going on. There appeared to be some sort of a blockage. She arranged for a tech to stay late to help with the surgery and into the OR he went.

Lo and behold, she found a toy inside of him. This dog had not had any interest in toys for quite some time and had not had access to anything destructible since he was a puppy. When I saw the toy, I realized that it had been inside of him for over 6 years! He lost a couple of feet of intestine, but with Dr. Burley's expert skills and dedication, he survived the night and came home the next day. His recovery went well and he resumed his normal routine.

His initial echocardiograms indiated that he had mitral valve dysplasia, but it never advanced as he aged. Other than that, his echos were normal until he was 7 1/2, about 6 months after his intestinal surgery. At that point, the results indicated that he had occult DCM. Happily, he had no symptoms of heart disease whatsoever. He was eating well, active, showed no signs of exercise intolerance, fainting, breathing abnormalities or anything else, so I did not put him on any medication at that time. Subsequent echo's showed little change, and his overall health was good, so he remained drug-free.

Sometime after his 10th birthday, he started to limp a bit. By this time, we were dealing with COVID and I could not go into the clinic with him. The vet had a hard time determining where he was hurting because he was not relaxed enough. She put him on Rimadyl and within a day he was much improved. Then about six months later, the limp came back, even with the Rimadyl. I tried giving him some CBD and it worked! He was not showing any signs of discomfort. At least not for about a month. One night he woke me up in the middle of the night. He had gone out to pee and was outside barking. I looked out to see what was wrong and I could see the bow in the front leg. He was barking because he could not make it back into the house on his own. I knew then he had bone cancer.

I got him in the house and into bed. The next morning he couldn't walk by himself, so I got him out to pee and had a friend come over and help me put him in the van. When the vet opened, I got him in and she confirmed he had bone cancer and there were 2 cracks running through the bone in his front leg. I've had more than my share of dogs with bone cancer, and knew there was only one thing I could do. Fortuntely, the vet let me come into the office so she could put him down. I hugged him one last time while he was put to sleep.