Cindi Eilers
New member
She has been to the vet a few times over the last few months. A few months ago she had a large swollen mass by her upper elbow that swelled to golf ball sized. We took her in, got the Xrays and the vet said it looked like bone disease but the Sr. Vet called back to say it was some inflamation due to arthritis and he gave us some stuff, the swelling moved and then went down and we got her fixed up with pills, heat massage, etc. Now a few months later I noticed she looked like she was losing weight so we increased her food by 1/3 and she has lost 8 lbs since the last visit. We had blood work done which came back relatively normal except a little low in protein. The Dr. mentioned that her heartbeat was having irregular patterns and gave us an option of doing heart testing but said that at her age, it would have a low chance of doing much good at this point and had no guarantees. She is 9 and I know we have come to the end of her expected life expectancy and I love her so much but I also do not want to pay thousands of dollars on a very senior dog but I do want to prolong her life and make her as comfortable as I can. I am looking for nutrition packed supplements that would be very appealing to her. She eats the grain free version of Taste of the Wild in the red meat version both dry and wet and she is on supplements for her joints. My vet has suggested that the breathing and heart problems would cause her to have less of her food being digested so I upped her feedings and we quit doing anything heavy outside, turned up the ac and bought her lots of treats. I saw scrambled eggs added to her plate might be a good idea, the vet has prescribed her some beta blockers to see if the heart irregular beats can be slowed down a bit (which I haven't started yet) what else can I do for my dog to make the end of her life as comfortable as possible? The weird thing is she is happy and not in pain, the vet also said with these kind of problems she doesn't know she's sick and doesn't hurt and might just die suddenly, which sounds so awful but I guess its better than watching a dog go through something painful. I am assuming this problem is common with bulldogs so I figured I might find the most ideas here. I am not looking for heroic expensive measures, I am accepting that she has had a great life and she is a wonderful dog, just cheating a little bit more time out of this situation. Thanks in advance!