Holy Smokes

Yesterday, at work, a pair of dogs didn't want to eat very much, and were pretty quiet and lethargic. Something to pay attention too, but nothing to be alarmed about. So this morning, one of the dogs, Triscuit, had eaten his dinner, but didn't want to eat breakfast, and was really sore. His back, right leg was a little swollen, and he didn't want to walk on it, but he was willing to put it down and even put a little pressure on it. Again, nothing really to be too alarmed about, we see the same symptoms present several times a year, atleast 95% of the time the dog has Lyme, which we just treat with doxy. So we bring him to the vet where I am dropping off a pair of cats to be fixed, and they do a quick lyme test on him. The test comes up negative, so they tell me to bring him back for a full exam by the vet when I come back to pick up the cats in the afternoon. So we go back to the shelter, and he goes back in his kennel. Now, he is wagging his tail, saying hi to people and other dogs at the vets office, really just appears like he has a sore leg, and he's a little tired, which could just be because he is sore. No trouble breathing or anything. So we put him in his kennel, going back to taking care of the other 60 animals that need to be cared for first thing in the morning. An hour later, the girl taking care of the kennels today goes back into the area of the kennel where Triscuit lives, I was about to take out a couple of bags of garbage, and I hear the girl taking care of cats say that I need to go check on the dog right now because he must be getting worse. She hadn't seen him yet, just was relaying what the girl taking care of the dogs told her. So we both go right into the kennel, and look, Triscuit is laying on his side, fully stretched out... not breathing. He was dead. So I called the vet and they said I could bring him down. They did a necropsy, and don't know what he died from. He had fluid in his abdomen, which usually means a heart or liver problem, but both the liver and the heart looked ok. It's still possible it was the heart or liver, something that can't be seen without sending out tissue samples for extensive testing, which we didn't do, because of the cost issue. Poor Triscuit.