When Diana told me about Buffy's diagnosis, I was stunned. I knew she wasn't doing well, but I wasn't prepared for this.
In the past year, Buffy had some health issues. She started coughing more, there would be a period when she needed to go out to potty in the middle of the night, and her appetite was inconsistent. It was hard to know what was "she's just getting old" and what were issues that needed to be addressed.
We took Buffy in about a year ago to check on her coughing. It sounded like she was choking on her saliva as she coughed, and it would get her up at night, and she would seem uncomfortable. After it not going away on its own, we learned that she was experiencing tracheal collapse, which is precisely what it sounds like.
When we got her looked at for needing to go out in the middle of the night, the veterinarian found that she had heart issues. So we got her on some medications, and it seemed to help. She no longer needed to go out in the middle of the night, and her coughing improved.
We had a couple of months when things were going well. Then there was the concern we had was that she was underweight.
Buffy had always been a picky eater. We had to doctor up her kibble with wet food to get her to eat as a puppy. In the past couple of years, we switched to Farmer's Dog, which sends over frozen food, which for a while, she liked so much we had concerns that she was getting overweight.
That wasn't the case for the past couple of months.
I would heat up her food, and sometimes she would eat it. Sometimes she would not. I would mixed dog-safe food from our dinner, like salmon or chicken breast. This led to her making a mess on her food mat, digging around for the pieces of meat and leaving parts of the meal she didn't want around her bowl. While it was annoying that the area around her food bowl was a complete mess, I was glad she was eating.
Then we had a follow-up appointment in early June, and the news wasn't good. Some dogs live with congenital heart failure, and some don't. Treatment for this condition has improved dramatically over the years, but it's still a serious prognosis. We got her on another medication, and hoped for the best.
Buffy seemed to respond well to the medication, but as her appetite declined, we began to worry. The veterinarian had asked us to consider Buffy's quality of life, and I began to wonder.
Coming up in Part 3: Quality Of Life.
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