TL: DR version: Had to put our dog down today...
Long version:
Last night, he was his usual self. 9 - 10pm, it's his treat time and he knows it. So we get him his snausages. My wife likes to play this little game with him where she holds one at a time in her closed fist, while on my leg and then he goes to town trying to get it out of her hand. After 3 treats, my pants leg is usually soaked.
We did this like normal.
A little later, he wanted to go out. So since I was up, I let him out, told him to make it snappy... So I let him be while I went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I go to the back door and proceed to watch him try to take a dump in part of the yard he never does it in... Ummm, ok... Then he gets up from the squat, moves further down in the yard and tries again... Then I see him go lay down in the yard, in the snow. Something he never does. I let the Wife know as I'm watching him. We call him in, he's slow and lethargic to get up and come in. He comes in and has that "oh woe is me..." look on his face as he now nuzzles in to me while I'm sitting, and I give him a rub down.
Fast forward to bed time, we tell him it's bed time, which usually elicts excitement and he would normally run in to the bedroom and hop on the bed between us. Last night... Nothing. He sat on the floor in the hallway between our kids rooms. Umm, ok...
About 1am I get up, he's not in bed, I went out and found him still in the hallway. He was breathing hard and again, just lethargic. He has had seizures in the past, so thinking maybe he had one while outside earlier, I wasn't going to force him to move or do anything and just layed down with him in the hallway and loved him for a couple minutes. He seemed to breathe better, so I went back to bed.
Fast forward to this morning. I'm awoke by my Wife and Daughter. At some point in the night he made it in to her room and threw up. So they were cleaning up. He had moved back to the hallway. So she of course is also trying to get him in to the vet.
We tell him "Let's go for a car ride.." He LOVED car rides. I couldn't leave the house on the weekend without him as he knew my cadence and wanted to go with. So he would go with me all the time between houses. Anyway, nothing. He had this look of "FUCK YOU" when we tried to get him to come out to the car. Eventually he did get up, and saunter to the kitchen to the door where he more or less collapsed.
I ended up working a bed sheet under him, and then picking him up and carrying him to the van.
We get to the emergency vet (our regular one wasn't open yet), I help lift him on the cart and they take him in. About 15 minutes later, the docter calls and says that she just took a vial full of blood out of his stomach and that she has a gut feeling that he has a cancer cyst on either his spleen or liver based on feeling his body. Options are x-rays, ultrasounds, etc, and surgery or... Of course this sends my wife in to a tizzy. So she askes to have a moment to call our regular vet. While on the phone with them, the emergency doctor called and said basically to get our asses in there. He wouldn't make the trip to the regular vet. OUr options were a blood tranfusion to even be able to do the surgery or do the dreaded.
So we all go in. And he was already on the way to doggy heaven. He recognized us, but could barely breathe and couldn't really move at all. So we had to give the ok for the shot. He died with my wife and kids hugging him and his head in my hands.
