Update on vomiting 6 week old puppy.... :(

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Mongoose11

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'Eric' (named by his new Mummy to be) spent the day at the vets today. He has had an X-ray and various bits and bobs looked at and they have concluded the following:

He has a bent sternum, a wonky oespohagus and there is a loop of something (sorry, I'm not good with the technical bits but Mum has it all written down at her house) that was sitting over his oespohagus, hence the regurgitation. I am sure mum mentioned something was a problem with the hard part of his throat not the soft.... She may be just saying things very simply there so not quite sure what that means...

We have told his new Mummy that he won't be coming home to her in two weeks, luckily she had out a deposit on two pups and will still get to take Bruiser home with her.

Parents are meeting with the vet again on Saturday to talk things through, Eric is happy in himself and can be fed morsels slowly and by hand so they have a better chance of going down and staying there.

Dad has said that if the operation they have said could happen will give him a decent life and lengthy future then they will go for it but if it means a few years of uncertainty then he will be pts when the other puppies go off to their new homes. The operation could cost five thousand and my parents aren't loaded at all, they will go into debt to pay this bill but they are soft. If Eric stays with them he will be lab number four and dog number six :o if he does get to stay with them he will have a lovely life, the dogs walk miles a day and swim every day too :)

What do you think....? Are they mad to even consider it?

Eric cried so much at the vets mum had to go home and fetch another puppy and take it back there to stay with him for the day. He was beside himself and was unsettling the other animals :(
 
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Oh bless, poor Eric, that doesn't sound good :(
Guess you just have to do what's best for the pup and on the vet's advice. So hard. Wouldn't life be easier sometimes if we all had bottomless pockets.
 
Springy said:
Stay clear as upsetting as it is......
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Springy he is already with my family - bred by my Mum. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy him of course but he is already with us, we have informed his purchaser of the problem and he will be staying with us. The decision is whether to go ahead with pts or not...
 
Billie1007 said:
Springy he is already with my family - bred by my Mum. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy him of course but he is already with us, we have informed his purchaser of the problem and he will be staying with us. The decision is whether to go ahead with pts or not...
Click to expand...

Hmm I would PTS personally but thats not as easy as it sounds (thats what I meant) Im in cloud cuckoo land at the minute trying to do too many things at once :(
 
Poor little mite.

Id have him pts. Partly due to money (that is LOT of money) but also because it will be soooo stressful for him. With so many issues it won't be straight forwards and one surgery won't fix everything. When they're that congenitally deformed there is rarely only one issue.

Id let him go quietly and peacefully. He won't know any different, it's just sad for the humans.:(
 
I would PTS.
Also, did you say the lady that was buying him was buying 2 from the same litter!? She must be mad.
Poor little boy.
 
I'm afraid I would pts too. If he had just one of those problems it would be worth giving him a chance but imho the odds are stacked against him. I do know how heartbreaking it is, we had a pup in a litter who was tiny and had a malformed vulva, but we decided with the vet to give her a chance. I got her to 6 weeks but she began showing more problems, she seemed to have neurological issues and kept falling over so we decided to pts, I shed a lot of tears over that little one.
 
Personally I'd want all the info before I could make a decision and, like you I'd want to know what the quality of life would be assuming the operation was a success. IF they are the only issues and they could be rectified then I'd be tempted BUT then again, £5000 seems extremely steep! I would want to query that to be honest.

However, if the likelihood is he would continue to have problems throughout his life even with a successful op, then the best decision would be to PTS. So sad :(
 
That is very sad, Aru did say something on those lines and she is a vet, if it was my decision I would be having the poor litle pup pts. I would also ask the vet whether it was genetic or just one of those things, if it was genetic I wouldnt be breeding that bitch again.
 
Ahhhh I wondered if Aru was a vet or very experienced breeder as she is pretty much spot on! Come back Aru, we need your advice re the operation!

No she wont be used, Mum won't be breeding again, I didn't really support the whole venture at all but the puppies are hard to resist once they are there! It was going to happen whether I liked it or not!
 
If this has the danger of presenting anything like a condition called megaesophagus (it sounds like it could) then PTS. Harsh but you have to think of the quality of life for the dog and IME this condition is awful and very hard to manage.
 
Just seen this post. Sorry to hear thats its been bad news I was hoping I was wrong the last time. :(

Il admit straight off that I am new out of collage and have not much experience in these type of cases.More than enough to recognise and understand the issues but lacking an indepth knowledge on the referral level operations.

However from what I can gather from here he appears to have more than one issue....One is that that piece of something over the oesophagus...I suspect that may be part of the heart but there are some other causes as well.....if it is the heart this site has very good explantions
http://www.vetsurgerycentral.com/gi_praa.htm
If it was the only issue it would be one thing as surgery could be done and the restriction removed....it would not be an easy operation and on a young dog would carry quite a lot of risk but it could offer a hugh difference to quality of life. However there appears to be more than just that as an issue if he also has sternum and other oesophagus issues...so it is hard to know if an operation is a cureable situation more a damage control situation.

What you need to know is what would be be is in danger of continuing to have issues post op? Could the operation be enough to fix the oesophagus issue permanently or do they suspect that the changes already seen are permanent? How bad is the sternum issue? Just incidental or could it affect his breathing later in life..What exactly is wrong with his hard palate?how could that affect him later? What are his chances of being near normal post op?

Its also not just the operation its trying to manage him until he is safe to be operated on....he may need to be a bit older to operate on as pups and anaesthetics can be tricky. Managing the way he eats until then so he doesn't end up with a serious pneumonia from regurgitating food could be difficult.

Personally I could not justify putting a young pup with a number of issues through such an invasive operation without very good odds of complete success.

Obviously however your vets and your parents will know a lot more about the exact situation and it is there choice.

The one thing that is for certain however is that a choice will need to be made to treat or pts......as he is regurgitating his food now he is at a serious risk of having some of it end up in his lungs :( feeding him upright and treating him like a megaoesphagus case can help to manage it but in the long term his issues will be quite serious and likely life limiting.

Edited to add Sorry my replys a bit rambly il clear it up a bit 2moro but Ive to head out on call now so will recheck 2moro.
 
I would put to sleep also :(

I've just lost a five year old dog who was a bit of a mess when he was born and had a lot of surgeries when he was only a baby puppy - it just looks like now, he was never meant to be here. I am glad that he was here but I cannot hand on heart say I would go through it again, as different as my life would be now had he not been here.

I know people with a retriever with Mega E and they have to feed her by hand, propped upright and all sorts, sounds like a bit of a job to cope with.
 
Thanks all, Aru that link was helpful. Vet has said likely that the heart is involved - mum met with the vet yesterday who has agreed it is well worth having the initial investigation which will cost about 500 pound, he will have to go to a specialist centre - luckily it is only 20 odd miles away.

I have just been over to see the pups as they are being collected by their owners over the course of the next week or so - my parents in law are having the only bitch so it will be lovely to see her grow. Eric is a very happy boy, playing tugga with the others, rolling around and biting and barking - hard to see anything is wrong other than he is a little smaller - he is being fed whizzed up chicken, by hand, for the foreseeable.

I guess only time will tell but they can't bring themselves to pts without looking a bit further into things. If he was a sickly boy who was suffering then I think they would have gone ahead but you really can't tell he is any different. Hand feeding from a height is working - for now!
 
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