Abby, Then Sport And Now Recall, lost two long-time pets Options

[MizzouMom]

I have found comfort here before from caring pet owners during a pet crisis, and felt the need to visit here again.

After months of dealing with kidney failure and unknown lung disease in our 18-year-old Abby kitty, we lost her in January. I was doing daily subcutaneous fluids for the last month, and finally her lungs were so bad we couldn't go on.

Two months later our approximately 14-year-old shelter dog Sport died after a sudden illness. He had lost some weight in the last year but had remained active and happy. I had been top-dressing his food with some canned Iams over the winter to encourage his appet*ite and try to help him gain weight, but he developed vomiting and diarrhea about 3 weeks ago.

Took him to the vet on a Friday morning and by Saturday night he was gone. Now I see that the food I was giving him was on the recall list, though I no longer have any cans here and can't really prove it.

Talk about guilt. These two were our most elderly pets and had been here through my children's childhoods. I did all I could for Abby, but Sport's passing was a shock. And now I feel quite sure that he died because of this contaminated food.

Yes, he was probably 14, but he had time left. How to cope with this rationally? Placing blame and lawsuits are not an answer in our case, though I'm sure that is going to happen to the company at fault as this story proceeds. I'm angry and confused. Iams used to be the "good stuff" that we fed our show dogs in the mid 70's, and I'm sorry, but I'll never buy it again.

[toonie]

Mizzou mom, very sorry about your losses, you did more than I ever could do, and after all the exhausting devotion , if it is the dog food that spoiled your good care, you are a saint not to be absolutely livid! FK Mom has shared her wisdom and knowledge, that is always much appreciated. I agree with her thoughts about the need to balance the medical interventions with our own judgment of how beneficial this will be for our pets. Of course when are on our own for such decisions it can be very difficult, there is no formula to follow when our pets become sick, and the way to go about it becomes uncharted territory and can leave pet owners so vulnerable.
I much admire your devotion and your pets were blessed to have you.

My experience with large animal vets is that they have practical sides to them: in the case of a healthy pet they can save you some money and do the visits at home so this is less stressful. But I would now be very nervous about using them for any symptoms in pets because they haven't the experience small pet vets do and generally they deal with younger animals. I have deep regrets of having relied on them for my two 13 year old house cats (lost both this last Oct and Nov ). In 2003 one cat started to twitch at imaginary mosquitos and would take off running as if in fear of them. He would do that occasionally and it distressed him so much. Hearing of this, the large animal vet gave me a wormer. Now I know that it was an early symptom of diabetes and that my baby had diabetes for 3 and a half years before neuropathy symptoms made me take my cat to a regular veterinary clinic. (His only other symptoms were less agility and a bit of weight loss which we attributed to his age.) Now I realize that his last 3 years were probably more miserable than we knew, he slept so much I was pleased to see my big orange cat so lazy...it pains me so much to know that he may not have been feeling that good when he lay quiet. Would a small animal vet have known about these symptoms? Probably more than someone who treats horses and cows although I have no guarantee.
I have heard that veterinarians don't make very much money, so it would be
normal that they encourage us to pursue treatments that are questionable- subconsciously they know they need to pay the bills.

About food, we have barn cats and so does an acquaintance of mine who is a vet. Her cats are fed dry cat food and I feed mine ground beef + small amount of dry food (that only the skunks eat!!!)Most of my cats are too wild to vaccinate and most of her cats get vaccines. Common acquaintances are surprised to see that her cats are runny nosed and teary eyed and mine are clear eyed without vaccines. (To be fair there was a period(15 years ago) where I lost almost all my barn cats to distemper but they don't have it anymore. I think it has to do with the quality of the food and wonder why it is that while many farmers are unable find markets for some of their animals, pet owners have to do with food from thousands of miles away, food that is mostly corn and little meat protein!