Your dog’s pain and how you can help!!
Pay attention to their signals!!
We don’t often realize when our dogs are in pain. I know when our German Shepard mix, Ziggy was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his leg, it had already begun to metasisize. The doctor gave him about 7-9 months to live. He said that the dog had probably been in pain, but very often the dogs mask their pain so well. They hide their pain as a survival mechanism. Being weak would make a dog easy prey in the wild.
Well, as Ziggy got worse, it was hard to tell. He still played, but not as much, moved around, but not quite as fast and enjoyed the family, just not with as much zest as he had in the past. According to Dr. Jon from petplace.com, there are other physical signs that a dog is in pain, such as an elevated heart and respiratory rate, but most of us will not be able to detect those indicators.
One Saturday morning, I noticed Ziggy sitting on the livingroom rug. This was one of his favorite spots and so I didn’t pay a great deal of attention. As the day went on, we ran our errands, took care of house duties and settled back into the house around dinner time. Now, the odd thing was that Ziggy was in that same spot and hadn’t moved. I took notice then and called the vet. He told me to give him an aspirin and call him in an hour. Ziggy was no better so he told me to bring him down. With my daughter and husband, we took Ziggy for his final car ride. He took the dogs heart and respiratory rates and also looked at his gums and told us that Ziggy was suffering and in quite a bit of pain and explained to us the humane thing to do. We said our goodbyes and let Ziggy go in peace so his suffering would end.
Pay attention to your dog’s signals. They might not be able to tell you they are in pain, but there are ways to see it. Don’t ever let your dog suffer. They have been too good to you to let that happen!!!
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