PLEASE NOTE - THIS POST CONTAINS PHOTOS OF A SICK DOG PAST HIS PRIME. DON’T FEEL YOU HAVE TO CONTINUE
This post was written a year ago and has taken that time for me to be ready to post it.
In October we noticed a limp on Percy’s elbow. After a bit of silliness with a not great vet our regular vet, Grant, removed the lump and took a biopsy of some additional bumps that had appeared on Percy’s shoulders.
In November we got the biopsy results back and, what we had been fearing was confirmed, Percy had a very rare, very aggressive form of skin cancer. I took the call from the vet and did my best to keep balanced, asking the horrible question of how much longer he might have. Grant confirmed we were looking at just months. I called Mark and didn’t manage to be quite so composed on the phone to him but he was excellent. We told the boys straight away that evening and there were tears for all that night as there were, in waves, over the next few months.
Once we got the diagnosis we were able to put Percy on steroids. Talking to our amazing vet friend and Percy’s vet we quickly discarded the idea of going through chemo; it would only have been palliative, the side effects were a map of difficulties throwing in questions about quality of life which just seemed pointless.
I’m so grateful our friend warned us of the miracle work of steroids. Within 24hours his bumps had gone and his face, which had swollen significantly, returned to normal. It was like a cure and we had to remind ourselves it wouldn’t last.
Percy died in February. Between diagnosis and his last day the illness took various turns. We dropped his walks to once a day after the two walks proved too big a struggle. In the last week, even his daily walk was just 10minutes long. We changed his food after his gut stopped coping and made him so stinky we had to open the windows or were in danger of loving him less. And we watched him like a hawk.
We’d been told not to wait to for him to go off food as a marker for any decisions. Dogs don’t work that way. They will always eat. If they are at the point of losing their appetite you have pushed well beyond the chance of a painless or peaceful death. But to help his gut, we changed to four meals a day of super posh wet food only found in a pet shop 30minute drive from the house. And he loved that. For ten years we made this stubborn bulldog go for a walk twice a day, pretty much at the same time each day. And for ten years he acted as though it was some unpleasant, unexpected surprise every single time. Get the lead and he’d turn his back, call him to you and he’d act deaf. Not once did he voluntarily leave the house for a walk unless you had another dog with you. And Alice didn’t count. Change his meals to four times a day and the stubborn fool suddenly became the world’s best time keeper. We had an alarm at 11am and 3pm to feed him and come 10:30am and 2:30pm he’d start barking at us, from wherever he was sleeping, to let us know food time was almost ready. Never in his life could his brain take in walks but change to regular feeding and his stomach was more accurate than a digital clock.
In the last month his skin became itchy. Having a home fire, which used to be his favourite thing, would make him restless as his skin was prickled by the heat. In the evenings he’d come and sit with us, push his face into my stomach so I could rub his chest, shoulders and legs. It was lovely, in the last month I packed in about ten years of snuggles but we knew this wasn’t Percy. Percy loved being next to people but quickly walked away after a minute or two of being stroked. You knew he was in his happy place when sucking on his Ted next to people, not sitting on laps or snuggling in.
He stopped sucking Ted in the last week and that was one of the clearest signs we had that even our best attempts at offering palliative care were coming to a close.
The other big sign came with his skin starting to break in the final weeks. Alongside the bumps, he just developed open sores. Around his hips and along his back. The skin got itchier and we had to cover the armchairs in duvet covers as he would rub against them leaving a trail of blood behind him. He slept in our bed for the last week of his life and we had to put a fleece blanket down to stop him bleeding over our sheets. Looking at them in the morning brought a wave of sadness and love as we faced the truth of his illness.
In bed he would rest his head on my legs. As parents we do often get told we should cherish every moment which often feels an overwhelming ask. But those nights, falling asleep with the weight of Percy’s head against my legs of side is time I will always cherish.
There wasn’t much weight on him at the end. From a dog who usually weighed in around 22 or 23kg, by the end he was more at 18kg. Whilst he was still walking every day, in the last month or so we were having to carry him up stairs. With Alice still under 1, bedtimes became shift work with M carrying his teddy bear bulldog whilst I took Alice. Both waiting patiently together at the foot of the stairs as they waited for us to put them to bed. Having to carry him downstairs was another marker that the final days were drawing nearer. I moved one of the dog beds under my desk in the dining room and enjoyed having the two of them sleeping by my feet through the day. Whilst he never loved snuggling too close to humans, he was hugely tolerant of Alice sleeping on him. And even more so of her ridiculous snoring which got louder the more you tried to shush her up.
We had a vet’s appointment already in the diary for a week’s time and M phoned to let them know we needed to change it from a check up to have Percy put down. We’d done all we could and didn’t want to push him to a point we would regret.
