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I have just come
across the Rottweiler Health Foundation website.
I am grieving the loss
of my beloved Hector -- our beautiful 9-year old
Rottweiler that I had to have put down yesterday
due to bone cancer.
Hector was in very
good health, extremely active and very social --
we went on long hikes every day of his
life as I live in a rural area that has large
undeveloped areas that are perfect for walking your dog. Hector had medical problems at
an early age. Before he was one-year old
he
had his first knee surgery - anterior cruciate
ligament (acl) left leg. About a year later
the right leg acl ruptured -- followed by another knee surgery
six months later to have the meniscus removed from
the left knee. Generally there
is only a 10% chance of it rupturing once the
anterior cruciate ligament has been replaced ,
so apparently Hector was part of that 10%.
His knees however, never really slowed him down.
I had a board certified surgeon do
the surgeries and Hector seemed to recover completely.
He love to chase bears,
(which I heavily discouraged) deer,
coyotes, squirrels and the ground birds that we
would encounter on our many walks together.
Hector was extremely
loving, affectionate and very well behaved.
We
tried to give him experiences that he would
enjoy, from search and rescue training, to sheep
herding classes, to just hanging out with his
family. Our vacations were geared to taking
our dogs with us. Hector has been all over the
Western U.S., down to Napa Valley twice and over
to Vancouver Island numerous times.
The bone cancer was
a surprise -- he started limping just a few
weeks ago. I suspected he had tweaked his knee.
After a few days of resting at home he did
not seem to improve so we took him to the vet who examined him, but due to his history of knee
problems did not immediately recomamend an x-ray
as he too thought he might have strained his
knee. The vet also thought due to his age,
it might
be arthritis. We put Hector on Cartflex
injections and Medacam and what we called house
arrest for 10 days. After 10 days there
was still no improvement
and in fact he seemed to be worse. At that
point we had his leg x-rayed. The x-ray
showed a
tumor growing just below his knee. The vet
identified the tumor as osteo
sarcoma - a very virulent and aggressive form of
bone cancer. Our options were: 1) amputate his
leg and then give radical chemotherapy with a prognosis
it might buy him 5 months or 2) do nothing and give him pain
killers with a
prognosis he still might live for 5 months.
At this point we
could see Hector was in considerable pain -- but
he was still alert and eating well. It hurt
him to even go out to the bathroom. He could
not put weight on the cancerous leg, with all the
weight now on his good leg. I was very
concerned that he was going to hurt it.
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We made the decision
to end his life while he still had his dignity. On Friday, August 8, we had our vet come to the
house and euthanize our beloved pet.
Hector died
in my arms very peacefully -- it was stress free
for him. We are having him cremated and
will scatter his ashes in his favorite place --
down by the river where we spent so many happy
times together.
My husband and I are
heart broken -- Hector will live in our hearts
forever. |
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