This is so sad. I have 10 dogs but each one has a special place in my heart. I have not yet lost a dog from unknown causes.
Ryan, there is an autoimmune disease called pernicious anemia. Vets who have never seen it don't recognize it. It runs in lines but can show up unexpectedly when the right combination of genes get together. It's treated with steroids and the dogs get better. That was my first thought when I read about your dog.
I'm sorry that you lost your friend.
Mama Bear
Wow Liz after googling this it's a very real possibility. Their theories mostly had to deal with blood. He started getting this bruising that they couldn't stop from spreading and swelling. They thought maybe a clotting issue but he passed those tests. The vet was saying his blood, for lack of better terms, wasn't doing what it was supposed to. The plasma treatment helped to stabilize a bit but didn't last.
That was the hardest sight to see to see him bruised from his belly to his front legs. Swelling went from belly all the way to the neck. Ugh so hard to relive those memories.
Thanks for the info
Im not illiterate...only my phone's auto correct is
Wow, that really makes a lot of sense. I think trying to understand what may have happened can give you a little bit of closure Ryan. The unknown just has a way of chewing away at you from the inside out.
Thanks Liz for putting that out there as a possible cause, maybe it can help someone else out there.
"You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it." -W.C.Fields
Sorry Ryan, I have three dogs and one is a blue nose, they are all wonderful, but the blue nose we named Delilah is just the sweetest most loving lil girl. Just painful to loose them.
Right now I'm dealing with a 14 year old Chow with degenerative arthritis and spondalosis. (The computer says that I spelled that wrong but offered no better choices) I gets 9 pills a day. He looks forward to taking his meds because I put the pills in ground chuck. He sees well enough and he hears well enough. His blood work it perfect. His joints are failing. The best I can do for him is to keep him enjoying life for as long as I can. If I linger on what I will have to do in the future I always end up in tears.
Mama Bear
Sorry for your loss. We have a 10 year old Pitbull named Missy that I've owned since she was 6 weeks old and we absolutely love her to death. We were super worried about having a pit when we became parents, even though we knew pits used to be considered "nanny dogs". From the day we brought our first son home from the hospital, she's been by his/their sides. She sat right next to the boys when they were babies, she watches over them when they're playing, comes and gets us when they're getting into trouble and has never shown any aggression towards them. She even lets them play on top of her and sit on her while they're watching movies. She even tried to warn us that something was wrong with my wife before she was diagnosed with cancer.
I cannot imagine a day when she's not in our home .