Terri, I'm glad you bumped this. I missed it the 1st time around. I didn't realize Roscoe was getting up there. I love seeing his happy pics with Joel. We had a very overweight lab mutt (over 100lbs at one point) that we got at 9wks old from the Humane Soc. and he lived to the ripe old age of 13. His main issue was his arthritis/bad joints/severe pain moving that was caused by the ignorance of his owner. Over the last 2 years, he had times he could not get down the stairs-bad in a split-level, and some days he couldn't walk at all. I cheated as a nurse and brought home injectable steroids from work (solumedrol) and would inject him a couple of days in a row and he would rally and be ok for a few months. Maybe that is something you could discuss with the vet? I also had him on anti inflammatory med and tried the chondroitin glucosamine (couldn't tell if that helped since he was so advanced when I started it).
When he quit eating, we made the appointment. He was having a good day that day and TROTTED into the vet office to see all his vet tech friends. We almost didn't do it, but it would have been unfair to this dog that was our only child and who was down to 65#. It took us 5 years to get another dog (Huey).
RIP Homer
I hope Joel has a couple of good years left. Maybe check about the steroids? It really seemed to help, even though I really didn't know if it would at the time. |