u/Doorwasunlocked

Apologies in advance for what I’m sure will be a long post, but TLDR: My baby’s CM/SM has gotten worse, I’m not sure he’s responding to gabapentin, and we move overseas in 12 weeks.

I want to preface this by saying I don’t want his last days to be his worst days and I would rather say goodbye to him on a good day a month too early than a bad day a month too late. I have prepared everything to take him with us on our move- airline reservations, kennels, vaccines, bloodwork, etc. I’m not worried about that, just how he would tolerate the stress.

Now then, my cavalier is a little over 8 years old. He started showing signs when he was very young, like I want to say between 6 months and 18 months old is when I noticed his bunny hopping/phantom scratching. I had pet health insurance so I brought it up with the vet and every time I asked, they said it was just allergies and/or he was itchy. I asked every time. He did it WAY MORE on a leash, and it was phantom scratching, he didn’t make contact with himself but would almost limp along with his back leg raised and trying to reach up every few steps or stopping entirely to phantom scratch.

Five years passed without a veterinarian taking it seriously and we decided to take him off health insurance because we were older with better jobs and a more solid emergency fund. In hindsight, I should have taken him somewhere else for a second opinion but hindsight is 20/20. So, no insurance now. Last year, at seven years old, he developed some facial paralysis and lost the ability to blink his left eye. We took him to the neurologist and they agreed that they suspect CM/SM but wouldn’t do anything without an MRI. As much as I love my dog, $5,000 just for diagnostics isn’t something I could validate when I knew it wouldn’t change anything. I’m not working and I have two young children. The diagnosis wouldn’t change anything in the treatment plan for his eye, and his CM/SM symptoms were managed by just not picking him up and leaving him naked (no collar) at home. He eventually regained about 75% functionality of his eye.

Small things eventually got worse. He stopped jumping up on our couch to be with us. He refused to jump out of the car (a mini so a very short jump). He stopped coming to greet me at the door every day. He started sleeping alone in the bathroom instead of with me or the kids.

Then this month, he developed a UTI. We took him to urgent care and got him on antibiotics and rimadyl. Two weeks later, right as he finished his antibiotics course, he started yelping and jumping up from his sleep. He ran away like something had bitten him and then refused to lay down or walk. He didn’t eat for at least two days. I now wonder if the UTI is maybe because he was uncomfortable enough to not want to go out and potty? We went back to the vet and they FINALLY took me seriously on CM/SM concerns.

He started gabapentin (50-150mg pet 8-12 hours), methocarbamol (125-250 mg per 8-12 hours) , and rimadyl (1 tab in the morning, ½ tab in the evening). The vet said to play with the dosages a little bit and see what was working.

It’s only been about 4 days, but the first two days I saw little to no improvement so I upped the gaba to a full 150mg pretty quickly. I’m still not seeing as much improvement as I would like.

He has greeted me a couple of times, and he did eat his food yesterday, and he does reluctantly come to the door to go potty when I call him, but he hasn’t pooped in a couple of days and he still doesn’t come spend time with me.He comes for his medicine and he’s been a little more active, but he’s still not himself.

I think his normal self is what you would expect from a cavalier- everyone is his new best friend and he wants to be around people whenever possible to include at night and following me from room to room and greeting me at the door, etc. Now, I feel like I only see him if I go to the bathroom to tell him it’s time for meds or to go potty. He slips/stumbles on his back left leg sometimes while walking. He occasionally drops food out the left side of his mouth. The vet says definitely there’s some damage to his left side. He usually looks annoyed that I’m waking him up, he barely wags his tail. He looks miserable and I feel so bad for him.

Moving is just an added consideration of not wanting to put him through the stress of multiple flights, hotels, etc. if he’s already uncomfortable and if he’s going to continue declining in the following weeks. The vet said she didn’t think flying would make his condition more painful or worse, but I don’t want to put him through something so stressful and put him through those bad days if he won’t have many good days on the other side of it. I don’t want to put him down because I’m too scared of him hurting when he’s actually fine, but at the same time I’ve known and loved this dog for years and he doesn’t seem happy to me.

What meds/doses helped your cavaliers?

How long did it take you to see improvement when you started medicating?

How fast did your Cav’s CM/SM progress?

If you did say goodbye, what was it that told you it was time?

Thank you for sharing any insight or experience you may have.