Any Connection To Kennel Cough The Antibiotics And Now Kidney Failure To A 14 Dog Diabetic On

Has anyone given comfort to their dying cat or dog in a natural death, with no vet, by holding it in their arms until it passed?

Yes.My almost 18 year-old Siamese cat, my best friend and my faithful companion, a creature I loved with all my heart and that loved me back just as strongly. She died of liver failure, and had been sick for several years, getting better and worse every few months. I had fed her through a tube, a syringe and by hand, I had administered subcutaneous fluids daily for months because she was always so dehydrated, I did everything I could to keep her happy and comfortable until it was clear to both of us (and to her vet) that it wasn't either dignified or worth it to keep her for longer to spare me the pain of seeing her die.I'm confident I kept her alive while she could still enjoy living - long naps in the sunshine, purring and trilling, sleeping in my bed, responding when I talked to her, walking and even playing. But eventually the toxicity of her blood reached her brain and things went downhill fast. Death by liver failure is cruel and ugly. I talked to her lifelong vet and we agreed to wait. I'm glad I did - it happened fast, she didn't suffer much.On her last day, I held her through the last minutes of seizures and fits of coughing, got urinated on, her frail body cold and trembling. I whispered to her and held her close until the last second, and she knew I was there. I held myself together, I didn't cry - I had to let her know it was ok to go. Her doctor spent years telling me she only kept herself alive out of pure love. Her nickname at the clinic was Highlander. She'd been through so much - spider bites, fights, encephalitis, kidney problems, you name it.She died the same way she'd spent her life - in my arms, cradled and warm. Feeling her little skinny 4-pound body relax make me wail like I never thought I could - but at the same time I knew she finally could get some well-deserved rest.It was probably the most gut-wrenching painful thing I've ever done, but I wouldn't change a thing. That girl spent her whole life by my side, I raised her from a kitten and we'd been so close for so long, the least I could do was to ease her passage by comforting and letting her know I still loved her as much as always and that I was there for her.It's been 2 and a half years, and I still miss her every day.But I'd do it all over if I had to.

Can you have a bacterial/viral infection without having a fever?

To answer your question: sure. Sometimes infections provoke no fever, even severe ones. The current definition of sepsis (a more severe infection) includes 4 signs, and temperature changes is only one. You only have to have 2 of the 4 and an infection to meet the definition of sepsis. But more importantly, the temperature one is that you have either a fever OR a low temperature. Common reasons for no temperature with infection include a mild, not systemically serious infection; advanced age; lower starting point (normal temperature below the average), fever suppressing medications from tylenol or ibuprofen to immunosuppressive medicines; serious infections which can cause low temperatures; some low pathogenicity infections (I recall a patient who had bacteria eating through his heart valves, going on long enough he lost weight and his diabetes improved from it--but no fever at all. It was enterococcus, which just doesn't cause as acute a syndrome as many other bacteria). Beyond that, doctors shouldn't just fire a bunch of antibiotics at swollen glands without a clue as to what's happening. There are many causes of swollen glands, and randomly choosing an antibiotic isn't going to fix lymphoma, or tuberculosis, or a viral infection, or run unusual bacterial infection. In a stable patient, diagnosis comes before treatment.

If your pet required an expensive procedure to live a few more years, would you do it or put them down?

Where do I sign?This is Frankie.Two weeks ago she started to vomit, and being a worrier, off to the vet she went. I was glad to pay for labs. Glad to. When those labs came back with some unexpected results, I was also glad to pay for very expensive medications. A week later, you guessed it, very glad to pay for labs to recheck. When those were worse, I was very glad to tell my employer to fuck off for the day because I had to get my beloved Frankie to a specialist. I was super glad with what that vet told me. Liver disease isn’t something you want, but it’s not cancer and it was likely with special food and medication she could live a while longer, a happy, ridiculously spoiled senior dog. Happy, happy, glad, glad to pay for it all.Now here we are, only one week from the specialist, and my beautiful, sweet dog is doing very poorly. She is barely eating, all she drinks comes back up. She’s listless, unsteady. She looks like she is dying. This nurse knows about how these things go. I know she is dying, probably very soon. I can hope for a miracle, and a short lived reprieve isn’t impossible, just very unlikely. The likely end of this very sad tale is that my lovely Frankie will die, that my best friend of 14 years will go to sleep and not wake up.Now, what would I pay to save her? Everything. Literally anything and everything I own, have, can borrow, maybe even steal. I’d give my own life, gladly.Addendum: Frankie’s rapid decline, and perhaps her liver issues too, turned out to be a nasty pneumonia. She was taken off of one antibiotic, that was likely not curing but perhaps muting a respiratory infection. That’s when she crashed. Back to the vet. Home for the weekend on IV antibiotics. Thank god I’m a nurse. Otherwise it would have been a vet ICU hours away. One whole lung just white on X-ray! Saturday was touch and go. Meds every 12 hours. Syringe feedings of watered down defatted chicken stock. Now Sunday and she is devouring the soft veggies from the stock. She’s finally coughing that junk up. She’s complaining and starting to boss everyone around again. She’s walking, not steady, but walking. Back to the vet Monday…but I’m hopeful for the first time in two weeks.Thanks for all the support. Thanks for all the kind words. This atheist will still gratefully accept any prayers to whatever god(s) you believe in. But I believe we might get through this.

Why do people take their pets to the vet regularly? My pets live healthy, long lives without regular vet visits.

Why do people take their pets to the vet regularly? My pets live healthy, long lives without regular vet visits.I have a good friend that has greyhounds. I swear greyhound owners visit the vet more than any other kind of dog owner. Those hounds go to the vet, probably, once a month on average.And my friend is always worried about money. Those vet bills are expensive. I feel bad for her.My own dog is an adopted Aussie, and has gone to the vet once, for a rabies vaccination, in the 12 years since I got her as an adult at a shelter.I give my dogs their parvo and distemper vaccinations myself. They cost 8 or 9 bucks.My last two dogs were fourteen when they died of natural age related causes.We have an eighteen year old cat that’s never seen a vet.I don’t get it.The way I see it… it is like going to a mechanic to get your car serviced. The more the mechanic sees your car, the more your car will need to be seen by the mechanic.Vets seem to be the same way. Just like a chiropractor, they sell you on continuous care for their benefit rather than their customer’s benefit.Vet care is already too expensive. Why make it so normal that you see it as necessary?EDIT: I’ve been watching this thread and it looks like there are two camps. One that believes in annual checkups regardless of any symptoms, and the other is the people that only do the vaccinations and then watch their animals carefully and only take them in when necessary. Regardless of which strategy is being used, it seems both have animals that are healthy and live long lives. THAT should tell you something.One of the vets stated, “Most pets are healthy and only come in as needed for routine vaccines or because of some non-chronic illness such as a laceration.” THAT is my kind of vet. An honest professional is hard to find.