My first baby

Anyone who knows me well, knows that Attley was my first baby. I got him the summer I bought my first house. I love the heck out of that dog. And while I was fairly good at training him to be a people friendly and generally obedient dog, I definitely did cater to him. I had never liked dogs much so I was really surprised at how much I loved this mutt. When he came down with hip dysplasia at 10 months, I was so sad for him and vowed I would make his life as painfree as I could afford. When he was 3, his left hip was getting really bad. I was pregnant with Cate and knew that if we didn't do something for him at that point, we never would. So we went ahead and got him a full hip replacement. He was a new dog. He could run and play again, scamper up the stairs, and keep up on long walks. He still had a bad right hip but the new hip could now take over the burden and give the right one some relief. And yes, things changed when we had Cate and then Clare, but overall, Attley is definitely a family member that we love and cherish.

One of Attley's favorite things is going up north so he had a ball when we were up there. He was tearing around the place, running up and down hills, chasing sticks into the water and swimming to his hearts content. We knew he was going to be sore - he always is when he overdoes it. Plus, he's been pretty lazy this summer so just the increased activity would make him sore all over. It would be the equivalent of me - super non-fit person - suddenly doing a triathalon. So we expected him to be sore. But after a week he was still limping around pretty bad. In fact he seemed a bit worse as time wore on. I called the vet and she came out yesterday to give him a once over (yes, came to our house - a good old fashioned home visiting vet - gotta love it). We wanted to rule out the possibility that he maybe seriously injured his hip or something else. First thing she noticed was his head bobbing as he walked which apparently is a dead giveaway for front leg lameness (who knew?). She looked at his right front leg and noticed a large knot on it. Scott and I are feeling pretty stupid at this point that we didn't even notice a large bump protruding from his leg. It seemed so obvious when she pointed it out. Plus we had just assumed that it was his back hip which is what is always bothering him, that it didin't occur to us to check anything else out.

The vet was giving us all these possiblities like arthritis, strain, sprain, or even possibly cancer. I figured since he came up lame after our trip up north, it had to be a sprain or something. She doesn't have mobile x-ray equipment in her car so told us to make an appointment at another clinic to get him checked out. We were lucky to get an appointment later that same day. That doctor comes in and explains how an x-ray works (Oh please! I always get really impatient when doctors do this - I realize that average joe maybe doesn't understand the basic concepts of modern medicine but I almost went to med school so I always feel like blurting out, "yes, yes, I know. Please move on.") Then she finally got around to the part on his leg which I could obviously see wasn't broken and told us it was either cancer or an infection of some sort. We would have to take him to the U of M oncology dept to get a biopsy to really know what was going on.

And that's where we are right now. I had a sad night last night thinking that we may lose our cherished pup. He's only 6 years old and I had thought we'd have him for at least another 4 years and hopefully more. Not to mention I thought we could amortize the cost of that hip replacement over several more years. Something is telling me that its cancer. And I expect there will be a ton of agonizing options for us to choose from, all of which may not work and we'd spend a ton of money to have him die in the end anyway. Apparently they can even do chemo and radiation these days. I hate the thought of him dying a painful death. I would rather put him down than draw out a long inevitable painful death. But I will miss him so very much. He's such a sweet boy.

So Scott and I are being extra nice to him. He definitely is in pain so we were given the go ahead to give him aspirin (he has liver problems too). And we're doing a lot of extra cuddling and loving. He really is a sweet boy. And I would rather deal with all the hair in the world in my house than to lose him. Hopefully it won't come to that. We'll know more next week I suppose. I'll keep you all posted. In the meantime, prayers for this 4-legged member of our family would be much appreciated.