u/lulabelles99

We had to say goodbye to our 5-year-old standard poodle, Auggie, unexpectedly. He developed a limp a few weeks ago. We were told to rest him as 2 different vets felt he had a psoas muscle injury. Since he wasn’t improving we took him to an orthopedic specialist who also strongly felt it was psoas but took X-rays under sedation to ensure it wasn’t a back issue.

A week to the day of that exam and while we were still waiting on results, he declined rapidly. Within 2 hours he was unable to walk. I took him to ER where they discovered a saddle blood clot and that sepsis had already taken hold of his poor body. They had us rush him to another ER with an mri to try to see if there was a tumor or something else, but they discovered his organs were shutting down and counseled us to let him go.

We were told this location of a blood clot is exceedingly rare in dogs (cats get them) and could have been what caused the limping. The experienced vets (one of 35+ years) in two different vet hospitals in a big city either had never seen it or only once or twice. It kills us to think the weeks we were resting him we could have tried to save him.

I’m posting as a caution (although if it is that rare I don’t want to freak people out). I also wonder if anyone else has experienced this. I truly hope not as this sudden decline was absolutely horrific.

And I’ve got to tell you about Auggie: He was the gentlest and sweetest boy. He came into our family 15 months ago after we lost a precious 14-year-old. He was sooooo perfect for us we joked that Josey sent him to us to help us recover from her loss. But now that we’ve lost him so soon after we had to put down Josey we’re so angry for him. Poor guy had to leave his first family because he developed bladder issues and they could not afford his prescription food or the probable surgery that he’d need to deal with recurring stones. We were told he never spent a day unloved and we took that and tried to doubke and triple the love.

I’m disabled and often feel isolated and lonely; no problem because Auggie was THE BEST cuddler. My husband likes to be active and Auggie happily trotted along on his walks. We like road trips and he turned out to be a great backseat buddy. He so wanted to please us that he’d actually lift the next paw to get a nail trim to make it easier for us.

He was also so empathetic. On the first day with us I started crying about Josey. He carefully walked up to me and gently put his head on my shoulder….essentially hugging me. He deserved so much more.

I know crappy things just happen and it sounds like no one would have looked for it for limping, but dang it’s so unfair. So I thought I’d bring it to this community. TIA and hug and squeeze your babies tight.