2 year old male golden retriever has been acting strange past view days - saw vet today
Okay so this is a long one.
I have a 2 year old male golden retriever who was neutered over 40 days ago. I live in South Ontario and there has been a nasty heat wave this whole week. I’ve followed precautions, only taking him for short walks in the morning and at night. During the day he will go out in the backyard for potty.
We have had our air conditioning set to 72F, and our room has a fan going as well. It’s pretty comfortable.
So Wednesday night I noticed Apollo was sleeping more. Still eating, drinking, and going potty like usual. I thought maybe he’s bored since we aren’t going outside to play and run (like he always does), or maybe the heat is making him tired (even though he hasn’t been out much, so I don’t see how it could be heat exhaustion or anything like that). Even when he went outside, he just did his potty and came back. and he walked pretty slowly. usually he digs holes, wants to chew on sticks, or run around. but he genuinely is showing no interest.
So Thursday morning comes around and I notice he’s still acting weird. He usually barks and whines at me, letting me know he wants to go out. But he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses me (which he does every morning), and I had to get up and open the door, which he followed after that. I took him for a quick walk around the block to let him do his business. Then he had his breakfast, some water, and he wanted to go back to bed. He stayed in my bed until 1:15pm. I had to get him up at that point. He stayed up a bit, greeted my family, then napped after his dinner. This is when I noticed his eyes looked weird. They were blood shot, glossy, and he just had this tired look in his eyes.
I told my partner that his behaviour has been weird, and we agreed that if Friday came and there was no improvement in his energy, we would take him to the vet that day.
So Friday came around, and same thing. I woke up to him licking my face. Then he went back to bed. Which is very weird, since he is super active and excited to start the day. He usually cries and barks at me if I don’t get up right away.
So i took him outside, he did his business. He ate breakfast, drank his water. And he went right back to bed.
We took him to the vet Friday evening, at 5pm. The vet took his temperature via ear, and it was normal. The vet listened to his heart rate, and said his heart was beating at the lower end of normal, and she heard a sinus arrhythmia. So of course I’m concerned about that. Ultimately, the vet gave us some tests to consider. A florescent corneal stain (i hope i said that right), full blood chemistry and blood count test, ECG, and x-rays in case he ate any foreign bodies. If I could have gotten all the tests done, I would. But we just don’t have $1700 laying around right now, and the vet agreed that if he had some impaction inside, he would likely be vomiting, or issues with pooping.
We ended up getting him the blood testing and the ECG. which both were normal. the vet said his heart was beating fast during the ECG, and could no longer hear the arrhythmia. she told us that she would want to do the ECG while he’s on gabapentin, which we agreed we would come back for. The blood work was normal though.
She said his organs were fine, blood count was fine, and nothing pointed to anything being wrong. When she called for the bloodwork, she did mention marijuana. No one in my house smokes or uses marijuana, though our neighbours do all the time. I don’t know if that would be the issue. The vet also said it would likely leave his system in 24 hours. So the advice given was to monitor him, and come back if he gets worse.
I don’t know what to do. I hate seeing him like this, and not having a cure or fix for him. He just seems sad, tired and not himself. I’m worried sick and don’t know what to do.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
EDIT: after his vet visit, i gave him some chicken breast with his food. he ate it no problem, and he just drank a bunch of water right now. he has been sleeping pretty much since at got home though.
2nd update:
We took him to the pet store with us to get his dog food (and i got him a toy). this is him. also before anyone asks, he is not wearing a shock collar, it’s a life360 pet tracker!