Spike was 14 years old this May. His health hadn’t been the greatest but we just adapted to his needs. For the past 3 years Spike had been receiving insulin shots to control his diabetes. My poodle’s official diagnosis’ were diabetes, COPD and a collapsed trachea. Giving him his insulin twice a day was something both Spike and I were accustomed to. He wasn’t as active as he had been and often slept most of the day. He was also deaf and had cataracts that we weren’t sure how much he could actually see. But we grew accustomed to how Spike was and honestly all and all he was fine. Until last Wednesday night.
After I let him outside for the final time of the night Spike came in and started walking cross legged and into the wall. After a while he then started having seizures. It was terrible we didn’t know what to do for Spike. We found out which 24 hour veterinary ER to bring him to and off we went at 10:30 pm. Upon arrival the tech whisked Spike away to an exam room leaving Tommy and I to fill out paperwork and just wait for an update. Eventually the vet came to talk to us and let us know in addition to what we already knew about Spike she found other things wrong with him. And that his blood sugar was very low which likely caused the seizures. They were giving him IV glucose to bring his blood sugar back to a normal level. We were told they wanted to keep him overnight to the tune of $1200.00. Tommy and I were speechless, that wasn’t an amount of money we were looking to spend at that moment. We decided to just take Spike home and then to our vet the next day. It was then the doctor started taking treatments off the bill, lowering it to a little less than half of the first estimate. Interesting… The doctor left us alone to make a decision, when she returned she informed us that even with the IV glucose, Spike’s blood sugar level was still dropping. I said that there has to be more wrong with him than initially thought and the doctor agreed with me. She then asked if we had considered letting Spike go.
Tommy and I talked it over and decided that letting Spike go was the best decision for him. It was if his body was just shutting down and had had enough. I stayed with Spike, stroking his fur and hugging him and crying while the doctor administered the medications that allowed Spike to move from our world to the next. We miss him. We have another dog named Riley that is a mix of golden lab/golden retriever. Spike, even though he was a much smaller dog; was the alpha dog between the two. For the first couple of days Riley didn’t see to know what to do with herself. Lelly took Spike’s passing pretty bad she was crying the morning when we told her. I’m supposed to give the extra vial of insulin and syringes to our local vet, but I’m not ready. There are times I’m just sad, sad that our family member of the past 14 years isn’t here anymore. He was such a good dog. Never barked for no reason, didn’t beg at the table. We could let him out to the front yard while we sat on the front patio and Spike wouldn’t go any further than our next door neighbor’s house. He wouldn’t run away, just pee on the tree in front of our house and then come sit on the patio with us.
There will never be another Spike, and that’s ok
Menay O; mom to 4, Christian and thrift shopper on the side... 