Today was a
hard day. I drove home last night to the farm (a two hour drive from my school)
because I got a call that Schroeder wasn’t doing well. He was fine when I got
home and I made the judgment call that he was stable and would be better off
waiting until morning, but since he hadn’t eaten his food I decided to take him
back with me. I drove him back to my apartment and when we got inside he just
didn’t look right, and when I examined him his gums had gone white so I rushed
him in to the UGA vet school. He was bleeding internally and from the
ultrasound it looked as though his spleen was involved. We ruled out clotting
abnormalities (like a genetic disorder or warfarin rat poison). It appears as
though he had a tumor (hemangiosarcoma being the most likely culprit) on his
spleen that ruptured. Unfortunately, even with the $2000 I had available, his likelihood
of even making it through the night was very poor and I made the decision to
put him down rather than have him panic all night in a kennel (his worst fear).
It’s hard
not being able to save your pet, and it’s even harder being this close to
having my veterinary degree and not having the ability to do something more.
Unfortunately this isn’t something that I could have predicted even with
medical knowledge. At least I was with him and I know that if something could
have been done we were at a place that would have had the ability to do so. He
was such a little bugger, but he was a good boy and a great goat-dog. The farm
won’t be as safe as it was with my little white wolf.
Schroeder 2001-2013
-M
