Old Dog, New Pills, Life

Easily voted Best Dog in The Universe, our dog Felix, now pushing 12 human years, gave us a wee scare recently.

Breaking the patterns, he had not even come downstairs at dinner time. At bed time, he was laying on the floor, breathing abnormally deep, almost wheezing. He could not seem to lay his head down. I sat and held him for a long time, and he got a little more still.

He has been getting a lot more activity since we adopted our new puppy, Pimm. Our thought it was good for Felix to get more exercise.

The next day we went to our veterinarian for an emergency call. They got us in first thing in the morning.

Waiting for the Doctor flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

The first bit the doctor said was he did detect a heart murmur and was worried about Felix’s sagging belly, which might be fluids. Then there was a possibility of a tumor on his spleen.

First was an echocardiogram. Then an xray. Then blood tests.

The fluid was only fat, so that is good, as water means heart failing. No tumor on spleen. The diagnosis was his heart was more square than narrowed shape, and I got some printouts on mitral valve disease in dogs. We are trying some pills, something called Vetmedin.

He was pretty droopy that day (see the Featured image photo).

But the good news is that after 2 or 3 days on the new meds, he is his old self. He’s gonna be okay!

I adopted Felix in 2016 at the Payson Arizona Humane Society, when he was two. That story I wrote last year on his 11th birthday, including his puppy photo they had on file when he got the name Strale.

Felix @ 11

He’s been a good boy a long time!

2026/365/50 Who's a Good Dog? — 2026/365/50 Who’s a Good Dog? flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

And he is back in his regular habit of snow rolling.

Tracking the Snowroll flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

His fans can follow him on Mastodon via @felix@social.ds106.us (I have it rigged that he posts all the photos tagged felix I upload to flickr as well as sometime posting photos of Pimm and our cat Maggie).

Whew!

Featured Image: Mr Mellow flickr photo by cogdogblog shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)