Well..... it pains me to say this. But Roxie is not going to make it to 10 years of age. We just found out that her kidneys are failing and she is dying. Over 4 years ago, she was diagnosed with kidney disease. She got very sick and spent a while in the ER. Doctors told us we would have to give her sub q fluids every day and that she would probably only get another year. We were so shocked because we were talking about our only 5 year old dog. That we have always fed quality organic foods etc. She ended up defying those odds and ended up NOT needed daily fluids, in fact, she never needed fluids unless she was sick. But she was put on strict prescription kidney food diet. She has lived with that for around 4 years now. Also dealing with 5 bouts of bad pancreatitis, but always recovered with medication etc.
Well about 2 weeks ago, she started showing signs of pancreatitis again. Promptly got her into the vet, got her pancreatitis meds.... but this time, she didn't recover. The 10 days of pancreatitis meds were gone and she was no better (maybe worse). We got her back into the vets and they re-ran her kidney levels. And they reported the bad news to us..... her kidneys are failing and she is in end stage. One of her levels was so high, the machine wouldn't read it, the others had doubled in just 10 days. They wouldn't prescribe her anymore pancreatitis meds because they said that it wouldn't matter at this point. They said that we just need to keep her comfortable as she goes. They sent us home with pain meds. We are so heart broken. She won't make it long. She's lost so much weight and is basically just bones. Very lethargic. Not wanting to eat, and usually needs help to stand up. Poor girl is only 9 years old.
We now have a 3 1/2 year old daughter that loves her and a 1 year old son. My son, won't know what's going on. But, my daughter will.
My wife and I are still trying to process it all.
I realize that all her puppy photo links have been broken. I will post some good / happy photos of her when I can get to a computer. For now, she's still hanging in. But we're gonna have to make the hard choice very soon. :(