What should we do with our dog? Need advice.

Our 8 yr old black lab was injured 2 days ago, resulting in 4 fractures to her pelvis. She is currently sedated and getting IV pain meds at the vet. This is her second night there after initially hoping we could bring her home and do bed rest while she heals.

She has some history of arthritis, and is chunky from too many treats and being spayed. Her labs a few months ago showed some liver issues, but they switched her arthritis med to lessen the effect on her liver.

The vet originally didn’t think the breaks were as bad, but he found a 4th fracture this am, and both SI joints are involved. While doing her work up, they found she has a very enlarged heart, and she was also struggling to breathe with morphine, so they had to back off on that medication. Her heart may be compressing her airway somewhat. She likely has heart failure developing.

So, the vet basically gave us 3 options-

1. Surgery: $4-5000 minimum and we’d have to go out of state because they don’t do the surgery here. The vet is apprehensive as he isn’t even sure she will get through surgery due to her co-morbidities and the anesthesia would be too much for her. Even if she gets through it, there is no guarantee it will be successful.

2. Bring her home and let her lay stay in a crate to prevent movement for 6-8 weeks and hope it heals, but she can’t move much at all or she could further the damage or reinjure herself. We would need to put her in a sling to go to the bathroom, and the sling has to have two strong adults to lift her without shifting her pelvis while it heals. She would need to go out about every 6 hours and be confined the rest of the time. We both work full time so coming home during the day isn’t an option. If we could get away, we’d still need a helper, which won’t be easy to find.

3. Euthanize her- they have her in a drug induced coma/deep sedation hooked up to IV meds so she’s not in any pain. However, I am not sure if we do go this route if we’d be better to not move her, and let her remain sedated while the do it, or if we should bring her home and have it done here. We’d be able to be with her either way, as would her best friend, our Yorkie. I worry about the pain of transferring her in a car and her being more awake for it. When she was injured she bit me on both arms quite severely (she was terrified and in pain so expected reaction) so I don’t want to risk her biting anyone again.

If we do euthanize, should we allow the kids (13, 14) to be with her? Do we let her wake up some or just let her remain asleep? I fear they will expect her to be alert, and I don’t want them to be upset if she isn’t. I also don’t want to “wake” her to put her back to “sleep.” Also, what should we do at the clinic to make her feel more secure?

How did your remaining pet cope? Our 8 yr old Yorkie has had our lab as her “mama” since she came home to us. She is already acting confused and depressed. Any advice for her?

We have to make a decision tomorrow morning. Any feedback/experience would be helpful.

submitted by /u/jmebee
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/hmovxv/what_should_we_do_with_our_dog_need_advice/