Kidney Disease Senior yorkie (In need of guidance)
 

Hi all,

Long time observer of this wonderful forum, but first time poster.

I'm seeking advice in regards to Kidney disease with my dog Lady who turned 17 in November.

Lady was extremely fit and healthy until last week everything changed.

At 6PM she had her usual dinner and she loves her grub let me tell you. She was on a senior diet, but an hour past and I found her in her bed to what I believed to have been dead. It turns out she wasn't, however she was unresponsive so we rushed her to the emergency vets.

Her they recovered her, gave her fluids overnight and said she was a diabetic which is why this happened.

Turns out our next vet said she was not diabetic, rather she had chronic kidney disease and we were it was untreatable and that her time was up in their opinion.

As any normal human does, I went for a 2nd opinion as she means too much to me just to take the word of one person woth all respect to them. The bad news was, the 2nd vet agreed.

I'm finding this incredinbly difficult and believe me I want whats best for her, I really do. I've been by her side all her life and her by the biggest part of mine.


So I started looking on here and online at experience with this disease and the number one way to manage it (I understand its not cureable) is to start on fluids, attempt to lower the levels and then progress onto a diet or phospate binder.

Here is where I'm now hitting my snag. Lady has lost a decent amount of weight, she slepts a lot (she always did anyways) and she is having diarhea. No other symptoms are present apart from those and the obvious dehydration hence my desperation to get her flushes and on fluids.

With this said, neither of the two vets want to do it, they're literally saying your only option is to put her down. Lady has always been a fighter. She is still eating her favourite meals, will still scoff a treat, albeit she has symptoms, but I'm really stumped here.

My mum is too emotional to think properly, so shes just agreeing with the first thing the vet says.

Can anyone offer any guidance on how you would proceed? I understand this is a somewhat long post, but I needed to give as much detail as possible for you wonderful people to understand it all.

I have my reasonings for trust issues with certain vets, but I wont get into that.

In my head, I want her stabilized on fluids, to give her the required fluids when needed, to kickstart a new diet so she can start gaining her weight back and to use a phosphate binder to keep those levels low.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart any advice is appreciated so I can properly guide this hellish situation.

I am so sorry for you, and your beloved Lady. I am familiar with kidney disease, as our first yorkie mix, Elmo, developed it at age 11. He had a rapid weight loss, and became lethargic, and our vet recommended prescription food and IV fluids. We implemented the treatment, but poor Elmo was miserable. He hated the food, and I had to sit on the floor with him and spoon feed him little bits at a time. He looked at me each mealtime with very sad eyes, but ate it merely to please me. He tolerated the IV treatment bravely every two-three days, and took his meds, but he continued to fail. He was unhappy, becoming weaker by the day, and we decided to let him go back to his "old life". He ate his favorite foods and spent the last few days of his life happily cuddling with us and with his older brother. They had two more days to snuggle and spend time together, then he fell over when we took him for a walk. We took him to the vet, and gave him a peaceful end to his suffering. It was heartbreaking to decide to let him go, but we truly felt that it was his time to say goodbye.

Thank you a lot. I'm really sorry to hear about Elmo, that sounds awful and I can relate a lot to you right now. It really is a vicious disease which comes out of nowhere and that makes it all the more heartbreaking.

We have received a phosphate binder iPakitine it's called here in the UK and since yesterday she is eating her food with no fuss with this in it and is a lot more active today as in she is getting up and walking around the house going to her regular spots, etc. Just more perkier than what we've seen her over the past week which is really comforting to see.

The vet's we seen are just looking at her and aren't even willing to discuss any other possibility other than euthanize which I'm not allowing to happen right now as we see her 24/7, they seen her for 10 minutes and cannot possibly know how she is acting in the grand scheme of things.

May try another vet who will actually be willing to give out Lady the fluids she needs to be able to manage this because let me tell you this dog is not a quitter.

I am so sorry. It is heartbreaking to lose our beloved pups. If two vets say there is no way to save her, I think you really need to listen.

I once went way overboard with a renal failure pup. Of course I thought I was helping him, but in the end I believe he suffered longer than he should have. His photo is at my bedside and I speak to him often and tell him how sorry I am that he felt so sick. I know in my heart I thought I was helping and I am sure he knows...but I can tell you this: I will never push hard like that again. I WISH someone had told me he had no chance .. I won't go into detail but suffice it to say it was way too much.

17 is very old for a yorkie...you are, in my opinion, very fortunate to have had her so long!

I don't wish to tell you what to do. I am only going to say that you need to search deep within yourself. Are you doing this for her or for you? If you let her go on and she suffers and starts having seizures or dies, will you be ok knowing how badly she felt during her last days. I personally would rather take them to my vet and let them go peacefully....but, that is just me. You have to do what you think is best.

I will keep you in my thoughts. I wish you well...again I am so sorry. So hard. :(

Oh thank you very much for the response LadyJane, you're much appreciated.

I understand completely what you're saying and I'm honestly doing it for her as I believe she wants to be here still. I've had her for the whole 17 years, I know her inside out and to me right now she isn't a dying dog.

Sure she has a chronic disease that will eventually make her part ways with us to a better place, but she is still eating, drinking, peeing, now pooing normally again (no diarrhoea) and rolling around in her bed which is something she always done when she was happy.

These are the reasons I have not passed her on to the other side. Am I being unreasonable at this stage?

Hi and welcome to YorkieTalk. I wish it was under better circumstances I read your thread last night but decided to think about it before I said anything. I just want to let you know that I had an older Yorkie and I fed her on a senior diet but she didn’t do well on it at all. After about a year she just got real lethargic and sluggish so I switched her back to a regular diet not high-performance or anything and I noticed a big change toward the good.She was more active and coherent and I really believe that it was due to the diet at that time.
I agree with Joy, about quality-of-life issues and you sound like you are very in tune with your Yorkie so maybe you do not mention her age when you go to the next vet like you found her and you think she’s around 15 or so, maybe then they would be more willing to treat her disease instead of just writing her off. I’ll probably get blasted for saying that but I think there may be some kind of cultural differences between our two countries because I believe over here you could probably find any number of vets who would be willing to treat her at 17 years of age. I wish you the best of luck and let us know how it goes.

Hey Kjc, thank you for the warm welcome and I too wish it was under better circumstances.

I am very in-tune with her, and my 4 yorkies in total (they're all a family!), and I will certainly look into that diet thing with my other 3 who are now 7, 12 and 12.

I made a response to the above post from LadyJane which explains how she's being doing since, but it's under approval, so it'll probably be vieawable by the time you read this.

Your idea about the vet thing is interesting and I'm more than willing to give this a try. To be completely honest, I wouldn't blast you for saying what you said because I actually agree. My experience with the 3 UK vets I've used have really been hit and miss, some really amazing and some not so amazing (they tried to put her down when she was 13 for a non cancerous tumor in her bottom) Suffice to say, we found someone who successfully operated on it and it was extremely proven to be worth it.

The problem with our vets is, they all want history before treatment which is annoying, so maybe the we found her part might stop them from asking that.

I will certainly keep you up-to-date and I appreciate the optimism as I need a little of this in my life right now and so does my little fighter.

You are NEVER unreasonable when you make a decision about a pup you love so much. You are the one who loves her and knows her best.
I am glad she is doing better. I hope you have many, many more happy moments together.

That means a lot, so thank you!

I will be sure to keep you all updated. She is doing a lot better recently.

Oh, that is wonderful!! :love:

Hi I hope your little one is continuing to do better.
We are also in the Uk and our 2 Yorkies are almost 16 and 14 and a half .

We are in Scotland too! That's amazing. Our others are 12 and 7 along with Lady who is 17.

She has had a good past week, but started to be fussy on the food again. I'm honestly thinking it's the anti acid tablet that the vets gave us as every time he give her is she goes right off food.

I'm honestly just gonna stop using it at this rate.

Glad to hear she’s doing okay. Prayers for you and the family.

Be careful because it binds the phosphorous and it is probably helping her. Her appetite issues are more than likely just due to the renal failure. Have you tried an appetite stimulant? If not, ask your vet if perhaps it might help.

I want to thank you all for a final time with the advice you gave for me and Lady.

Unfortunately she deteriorated pretty fast this past week and passed away this morning at around 11 AM.

I'm absolutely heartbroken, she was the best dog I've ever had the pleasure of having by my side.

I wouldnt wish any dog lover to experience kidney disease, it truly is a horrific experience, but we gave her all the love she wanted till the end.