Titus

Yesterday was a heartbreaking day for us. We had to put our sweet Titus puppy down. It seemed so sudden that he would be this sick when he is only 2 years old, but sometimes terrible things happen.

About a month or so ago, he had congestion and coughing for 4-5 days, so we finally took him into the vet and they diagnosed him with a sinus infection and gave him an antibiotic shot. After 3 days his fever actually went up instead of down, and that was a Friday night. The next morning, he started peeing blood so that freaked us out a little bit and we took him to the 24 hour vet (that I nicknamed the doggy hospital). They  kept him all weekend and did blood tests and an x-ray and couldn't really find much except for pneumonia and they decided that he probably had several small infections all throughout and sent him home with oral antibiotics and anti-fungals for several days. He was doing great after that weekend, he finished all his antibiotics, and we thought he was all better.

Then, around May 1st or second, he started having the congestion stuff again and was looking a little puny. We wanted to stay ahead of it this time and so we took him right in to the vet and they started antibiotics again. By Monday, we were a little worried because he wasn't getting better, but they said to give it another day or 2 then they could try another antibiotic. At this point, he had stopped eating food on Friday, and just wanted to lay around. He was running a fever, and we figured that he just felt terrible and that his body was trying to fight the infection until the antibiotics kicked in. So this just kept going on, so they switched him to another antibiotic on Tuesday afternoon (may 8). He was feeling really bad and just wanted to sleep all the time. He didn't want people food, treats, or any type of dog food. We were having to force him to take the antibiotic pills and that was not very much fun. We kept thinking that the antibiotic would kick in any day. Our vet told us that he probably needed to see a specialist to find out what was going on because they did not know why the antibiotics were not working. They thought he needed a few other tests. We called to make an appointment, but the next available was a week away. By this past Friday night, he still was running a fever (going on a week now) and still was refusing food, and was getting pretty weak. We decided to take him in to our vet Saturday morning for fluids and to see if they could give him some nutrition. We told them that the specialist couldn't see him for another week. They advised us to take him back to the doggy hospital for closer monitoring over the weekend (they noticed that his breathing wasn't normal),and said the hospital could run some tests and if he was there, the specialist would see him first thing Monday morning. That sounded like a good plan to us so we took him in. They gave him fluids and ran some blood and urine tests. His liver functions were elevated and they didn't know what that meant, but would let the specialist see it on Monday. Then Sunday morning, he started getting worse, his breathing was shallow and labored. They did a doppler and found a lot of free fluid in his abdomen and tested it. There were a lot of white blood cells in the fluid which led them to believe that there might be an abcess somewhere in his abdomen that ruptured. They called the specialist in to do an ultrasound to see if he could figure out what was going on. At this point, we thought they would be able to do surgery, fix him and then all would be good. But unfortunately, that was not the case. They found a lot of very swollen lymph nodes as well as a swollen and abnormal liver. It was one of 2 things: lymphoma or a systemic fungal infection. If it was lymphoma (cancer), the only option was chemo, and if it was the fungal infection, the only option was a 2-4 week hospital stay with pretty harsh anti-fungal treatment that only gave him a 30% chance of surviving. The only way to confirm either diagnosis would be to send a biopsy off and get results in 3-5 days.

We went in to see him after getting this news and he looked awful. The vet told us that she had seen a pretty quick decline over the afternoon, and that she didn't think he would make it for more than a couple of days even if we wanted to try to confirm a diagnosis and start treatment. He couldn't move at all and his breathing was very very labored. We felt like the only good option was to end his obvious suffering and put him down. They gave us some time to spend with him privately to say goodbye. It felt like the hardest thing I have ever had to do. We loved on him and cried a lot, then decided it was time to let him go. We didn't want our last memory of him to be after he was gone, so we didn't stay in the room while they put him down. A very sweet tech stayed in there with the doctor so he would have someone with him when it happened.

Needless to say, we are heartbroken. We loved that little puppy so so much, and miss him terribly. He was such a sweet dog and was so happy all the time. We always said he was "my" dog because he loved to cuddle with us. He knew exactly when we needed extra cuddles, and would just crawl up on the couch or bed and snuggle :).  He never was needy or forced his way in, just sat there looking at you with big puppy eyes that begged for a belly scratch; and when you did give him attention, you were rewarded with a wiggly butt and so much excitement. His face was so expressive, and when Gaius was trampling him during car rides he would give us this "look" of total annoyance that was so cute and we couldn't help but let him come sit in my lap up in the front seat. He loved going to the park and would just run and run and chase Gaius around everywhere. It was so adorable when he found a ball before Gaius did because he was so proud of himself and would carry it around just to tease him. I will always remember what he looked like when we called him to come back home from the park and he would just run over to us as fast as he could with his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging as fast as it could go.

There will be many more tears to shed and many more days to grieve, but we will heal over time. We don't know why this happened, but we do know that we will get through it and that God has a plan. We don't always understand why sad things happen, but we do trust that God loves us and will never give us more than we can handle.