~Anne~

Thank you everyone. He's gone. One little dog missing makes the house seem so quiet. Olivia also seems a little lost. I cuddled him while my husband held up his leg, and the vet injected. He sooked when the needle went in and let out a little cry. He always was a sensitive little boy. I had my face against his and just kept whispering to him that everything was ok. Until he was gone. His urn arrived during the week and he was collected this afternoon for cremation. I hate the thought that the tumours killing him will be included in those ashes. I'm sorry if that sounds strange. His stomach was so big with them.

Thank you everyone. He will be sent to the bridge at 12.30pm on Saturday. I know we need to do it and I know it is for the best and better for him, but it is so heartbreaking. Olivia will be the only one left. I've been trying to think of how she will react. As she was a rescue, I have no idea if she has ever been on her own before. I guess the weekend will show us what to expect. I feel gutted. This count down is awful..In light of recent events and the countdown to life in Bali I feel almost selfish with my pain.

Boof is deteriorating and we have made the decision to give him his wings this week. I can't bear to see him suffer. He has begun to not want dinner unless it is something special. He had chicken schnitzel last night and this morning. He can't eat much at any one time because there simply isn't room for food. I always said that pugs never refuse food unless they're not breathing and I believe this is my signal. Even though his abdomen is grossly extended, I can now feel his spine. His breathing worries me too. The tumours are so massive they're pushing on all of his internal organs. I'll be confirming the day and time with my vet later today. I just ordered his urn. :cry: :cry:

Boofy is still ok. The ok gets less ok by the day. He's so swollen now he is sometimes unsteady on his feet. This morning I picked him up to help him up the stairs and he is so heavy!!! The tumours must weigh a lot. In the last few days he has begun to slow with his appetite. Normally he would Hoover everything and then some but as the weeks have progressed, his hoovering has slowed. He now eats slowly and leaves the crumbs. Leaving crumbs was unheard of before. Last week he was good. He even picked up a toy on one evening to play! My girls had come to say goodbye to him and stayed overnight and he must have been feeling good that they were there. This week he has slowed. There hasn't been any interest in toys. He is still wanting to eat though and he still looks expectantly at me when I am eating hoping I'll share. When that stops, it's time.

I've just noticed this. No advice, just a cyber hug. Boof is also on limited time. I can understand how you must be feeling.

That does seem like a heavy dose. Boof is on tramadol as pain management for his final days with cancer. He is currently on 40mg per day split into two doses and he is 11kgs.

My Boofy as a baby. He was so incredibly cute!

A couple more.

Boofy's stomach continues to expand. He now resembles a pregnant bitch. He is losing energy but I'm happy to say he's going ok. I know that could change suddenly but every day is another day with my boy. We had a day at the beach recently. He enjoyed it as always but didn't have the energy for his usual pug run when he was let off leash.

Boof has battled both MCTs and fribrosarcoma over the last 5-6 years and Olivia has just had her first MCT diagnoses. She had 3 low grades removed with clear margins last week. Boof has had 6 MCTs in all if I am recalling it correctly. He currently has several suspected MCTs but, given he is now terminal anyway (the fibrosarcoma got him instead) we are not removing them or even testing them. He had all grade 1 MCTs and one grade 2. He underwent surgery for each on and two surgeries for the grade 2 as they didn't get clear margins. We never followed up with chemo as his specialist believed it wouldn't do anything as he had no evidence of any tumours once they were surgically removed. Our issue was that they just kept coming. I trust that won't be what happens with Olivia. Anyway to cut a long story short, if I had his time over again I am not sure I would have put him through so much surgery. Low grade MCTs are slow growing, don't metastasise and are not invasive. We would have saved this little dog a lot of stress had we left them as he would have died of old age before they killed him. I guess what I'm saying is that MCTs are not the end of the world unless they are high grade. I've heard a lot of info on, but not experienced, a dog on chemo. I understand they do not get sick like humans do. I think (but I'm not 100% convinced) I'd rather try the chemo option instead of surgery if I could go back a number of years. I'm contemplating trying Olivia on chemo if any further tumours appear. As much as Boof loves his life, he doesn't think of death and it is me who wants him to live for a long time.

Thanks westiemum. He's still going well although he has been drinking more water than usual. My vet said this will be because of the liver tumours. Olivia's test results are back. The three lumps were all mast cell tumours. Thankfully only grade 1 and removed with clear margins. A relief but also a concern. MCTs seem so prevalent in pugs now.

Thank you all for your kind words. They've estimated 6-12 weeks at best. I thought it wasn't going to be good but hearing it spoken was upsetting. At this moment he is ok and he's not in any pain. In fact, he is brighter than poor Olvia tonight. She was with him today at the vets and she had a tooth removed and three lumps removed. We now wait for the path results.

It's not good news and they've given him only a very short time left. He has two tumours in his liver and one attached to his small intestine. They believe it was the fribrosarcoma on the spleen that metastasised. Even if we wanted to, there is nothing left we can do. :cry: :cry:

MCT are so variable in their presentation and how they progress that no two are the same. They do, however, seem to follow similar characteristics in individual breeds. Pugs, for example from my knowledge and research are commonly diagnosed with low grade MCTs and live a reasonable time frame after diagnoses. My boy, a pug, has had both grade 1 and grade 2. His first was at least 6 years ago. We had no more for a few years and then quite a number in a short time over the last 3 years. He now has other complications that may, or may not, have links to his MCTs. It appears not at this moment though. Im not sure about the incidence of MCTs in Boxers. Is there a boxer forum you could perhaps join and speak to others? I'm not fighting his anymore. He's been put though enough and I personally feel he is better off without further treatment, even if it me as his life will be a year or two shorter. He's now almost 12.5 years old. He's done well. I have another female pug, Olivia who is 10, who has two lumps that are being checked tomorrow. I suspect one is an MCT. They're a devil that also is haunting me and my pugs it seems. Good luck for your girl. I know what you're going through.

Thanks everyone. I've just re-read this thread. Holy cow, what a journey my little boy has had! These threads really serve as detailed records. I must remember to download it all. The support shown by others is incredibly touching. Thank you all. He really is such a beautifully natured, sweet little thing. All of his life he's been fascinated by children and babies. If you have a room full of adults and little children, you'll find him sitting next to a child. He's like a little guardian of children and is simply fascinated by them. He always has been.

Thanks Panto. I confess to being very afraid this time.

Well it's a little over 12 months later and Boof is heading down the ultrasound track again. He has a mass in his abdomen. In the last 6 months he's aged a fair bit. He sleeps a lot and has gone totally and utterly deaf. I was surprised at the speed of his hearing loss. Anyway, his ultrasound is on Thursday. If you can spare a luck vibe or two, please send them his way. The vets have tossed up different ideas, one being the splenic tumour metastasised, another is it is something very different. They think it may possibly be a kidney this time but, obviously, these are only guesses. The ultrasound should show us more.

We used to use acepromozine as a relaxant before surgery on dogs. Not sure if this is still common practice?

I should add that he was also on phenobarbital and potassium bromide . The Valium was in addition to those drugs when he was having a particularly bad cluster.

Monte was only a 9kilo pug and I was able to give him up to 4 x 10mg of diazepam, rectally, without issue. He was zonked on 40mg but it wasn't a dangerous level as I understand it. It never killed him or hurt him and he was given that dose on several occasions to stop his seizure clusters.

On the subject of diets, I was reading a Facebook thread on a lost and found dog page earlier today. Someone had posted that a frightened female staffy was hiding under her house. She had tried to coax her out with some toast. Some numpty, obviously on the 'grains are bad' team, said please don't feed it bread because bread was bad for dogs. This poor dog is scared shitless, cowering under a house, and people are worried about giving it bread. I wonder what would have happened if they had said they offered it a tin of Pal.

Hi everyone, I'm not sure if anyone can help but I have had someone contact me asking if I can help get a dog into a rescue for rehoming. The dog is a Shih Tzu to my knowledge. It is approximately 8 years old and is desexed and microchipped. It is an indoor dog and great with kids. The dog sadly is in the middle of a marriage breakdown and time is running out. It will go into temporary care after tonight but the person taking it on can only have it temporarily. Is there a rescue that can take this little one on? Please do not reply here as I won't likely see it. Please message me instead.

:laugh: Interesting reasoning.

The guidelines: http://www.olg.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/Clause-16d-guidelines.pdf

For clarification purposes - being approved for a Clause 16D EXEMPTION (I've used uppercase for a reason) only means you are exempt from registering the animal in NSW while you are in the process of rehoming it. I believe the exemption only lasts 12 months and then you must register the animal regardless. It has zilch to do with desexing, ethical rescuing or approval to rescue. It does not mean you are an approved rescue, and it does NOT endorse a rescue. Sadly, too many rescuers and even pound staff (even more bloody appalling) don't even understand that clause 16D of the Companion Animals Act states you must register animals and the application that you apply for makes you EXEMPT from that clause requirement.