Man's best friend

[lmcjaho]

This thread has gotten a bit depressing of late, unfortunately I don't have anything to brighten it up with. Diesel was diagnosed with a cancerous growth in his abdomen a few weeks back. Given his advanced age, other health issues, and the fact that he doesn't respond well to anesthesia we have decided not to treat it. Doc gave him anywhere from a few days (as he was not eating at the time either) to a few weeks (contingent upon us getting him to eat). As of today he is eating regularly - but only because he eats as well as me! We've been making him a homemade concoction of minced meat (pork or beef, whatever is on special) mixed with rice, pasta, and kidney beans for fiber and he's been eating it up. He's gotten so spoiled he stopped eating the meat raw about three days in so that's when we started cooking it and adding the rest for filler/fiber.

He's losing a lot of muscle mass but still looks big because of the bloating and the growth in his belly makes him look preggers. The cancer is also not helping his coat so it's all gray and dry and he looks a little bedraggled because of it. He still loves life, and he's loving all the extra attention he gets these days too. I just hope he holds on at least through the holidays - I'd like him to get to spend one more Christmas with the family and my wife's family (Mom/Dad/Bro/Sis) are all coming down for a week or two so it'll be nice for them to get to see him one more time.



Hard to believe looking at him in this pic that he used to be a 145lbs of muscle. Now he needs those demon-eyes to intimidate people

[dream_017]

Sorry to hear about Diesel. Just make him happy

[lmcjaho]

Sorry to hear about Diesel. Just make him happy

Thanks dream - that's the idea.

[stomperrob]

My granddaughter with my daughter's pit bull:

[lmcjaho]

My granddaughter with my daughter's pit bull:

O. M. G.

That is SO cute. Now cue the idiotic anti-pitbull-crowd with their hyperbolic claims of danger to the child

[lmcjaho]

"No Daddy, I didn't have ANY mischievous thoughts about the tree - I'm just sleeping, see?"

[stomperrob]

My granddaughter with my daughter's pit bull:

O. M. G.

That is SO cute. Now cue the idiotic anti-pitbull-crowd with their hyperbolic claims of danger to the child

Lol, I know what ya mean! That pit bull is the friendliest, sweetest, gentlest and well trained pit bull I have ever seen - believe me, my daughter is far more dangerous!

[dream_017]

My granddaughter with my daughter's pit bull:

O. M. G.

That is SO cute. Now cue the idiotic anti-pitbull-crowd with their hyperbolic claims of danger to the child

Lol, I know what ya mean! That pit bull is the friendliest, sweetest, gentlest and well trained pit bull I have ever seen - believe me, my daughter is far more dangerous!

Yeah right....I only see 1 arm on that kid!!! Get that dog away from her before it bites off the other one



BTW - cute pic

[lmcjaho]

Well the time has come. It's been a few more weeks than we had initially expected so I guess it's a bit selfish of me to be upset that we can't keep him to ourselves longer but it still hurts.

Diesel hasn't been keeping down his food this week - hours after eating he's been puking it back up and it looks almost completely undigested (4 times in the past 6 days). On top of all the other issues he's been dealing with this is the straw that breaks the quality-of-life camel's back so we made the call to the vet today to setup an appointment for Monday to euthanize him. We're going to use a different cremation company than we used with our last one (they increased their prices in a sickeningly gouging way) and we're going with their standard handmade wood box with custom picture frame and wood-burned-phrase option.

RIP Diesel - Aug 15 2002 - Feb 13 2012.



Looking at how healthy he looks in this pic makes me even sadder to see how he's looking now.

[dream_017]

Sorry lmcjaho, hang in there. I know how hard it is