Brutee Loo Hoo

Just wanted to update everyone after my post a bit ago about Brutus. He has lost a lot of weight. He seems ok - no symptoms of illness - except he's dropping weight really quickly and looks like a skeleton. (I promise we feed him) So we went to the vet on Wednesday night. They did a blood screen, because he has thyroid issues too, and called us last night to let us know it doesn't really look like the thyroid. They aren't really sure what it is. Our options right now are: 1) get an x-ray, 2) bring in a stool sample to check for parasites and/or 3) bump up the protein in his diet and see if we can get him to gain some more weight.

Now, I have no problem taking care of my animals - especially the dogs - but at some point reason and rationality have to come into play. Brutus is 6 years old. A Dane's lifespan is approximately 7-9 years...and that's when they're healthy! Brutus has joint issues, Addison's Disease, and thyroid problems. He takes 4-5 different pills twice a day. He has his own old person's pill box for goodness sake! Honestly, I never thought that he'd live this long although I am SO thankful for it. If they do an x-ray they are looking for cancer and/or enlarged organs, basically though, the big C. The vet said the only treatment for cancer in dogs is chemo. As usual, the Doc at Frontier Village Veterinary Clinic was extremely nice and agreed that my rationale was probably pretty spot on: if it is cancer, and we are unwilling to do the chemo, then there really isn't a point to the x-ray.

So, all day today Brandon followed Brutus around watching to see if he was going to poop. If/when he did, he missed it. Which means that tomorrow, if you don't have anything else to do and you'd like to watch something funny, you can watch Brandon follow our dog around the yard waiting for him to take a sh*t! In other words, we'll do the stool sample. And I am spoiling him with pumpkin and wet dog food mixed in his food until I can get to the store tomorrow to find some puppy chow for him.

In the meantime, we are keeping our eyes open for another canine friend. Not necessarily to replace Brutus - we are hoping he will gain some weight back and be ok for a long time coming - but so that Brutus can train the new guy up, just in case of his departure to greener pastures. Does that sound terrible? I feel terrible writing it. We are hoping to adopt a big guy that needs a new home. We are big dog people (Gilbert is an anomaly) and would like another Dane, or a Mastiff, or a Wolfhound, or some mixture of the jumbo breeds. We know that many people get these dogs thinking they are cool before they fully understand what taking care of a 150-200lb dog can actually be like - on your house, your yard, and your pocketbook. If you happen to know of anyone needing to rehome a jumbo-sized dog, please let us know!

So keep your fingers crossed for Brutus. We are hoping he will pull through AND have a new friend to play with!