What It Really Means to Love and Care for a Sick Dog

As I was headed out to make two stops for Tinkerbell’s medicines—wondering if I was going to need one more prescription filled and if my vet had gotten the message I’d left—I caught myself thinking

 

“This is just SO hard. I’ve been taking care of sick dogs for almost 4 years, and it’s HARD.” 

 

And then came the tsunami-sized wave of guilt.

 

Because… how could I feel that way, when I’d do anything for her?

 

Guilt turned into shame for thinking about how hard it was on me.

 

How could I feel bad that it was hard on me when I knew it had to be hard on her?

 

Tink was the one who felt so awful that she would not eat something more than once or twice without turning her nose up at it. Tink was the one who had no real way to explain to me how she felt or what she needed to feel better. Tink was the one with zero autonomy to make any decisions or take any action to make herself feel better, other than not eating, or trying to eat grass in the yard. Tink was the one who was dependent on me for EVERYTHING.

 

What kind of person was I to indulge in self-pity that it was hard on ME?

 

But the truth is, sometimes it is hard. And I’m learning that admitting that this level of caregiving to a sick dog is really, incredibly hard doesn’t make the love and dedication we have to them any smaller. It only proves just how big that love is, how strong our bond is, and what it really, truly means to be committed to your dog.

Understanding the Depth of the Human-Canine Bond

Many people often downplay what it’s like to love a dog. I know that it comes from a place of never having experienced the joy of having a close relationship with someone from a completely different species. I know that those people either have never loved an animal, or never loved one the same way I love mine.

 

I’ve had people say things like:

 

“You love those dogs more than you love your kids.”

 

“You love your dogs more than some people love people.”

 

“You love your dog too much. What will you do when it dies?”

 

“I’d never spend that much money on a dog!”

 

Not everyone understands that if you are like me, your dogs are your heart and soul. They are your best friends. They are your family. They are your life partners. They are all of those things all at once, wrapped up in one furry body with a heartbeat and a tail.

 

Many people don’t understand that love is love. You do not quantify love with amounts. You do not love someone more or less than you love someone else. It’s not as if your heart has a limited capacity and everyone gets an allocation of space. You just love. Sure, there’s romantic love that is different from platonic love. But there’s not a hierarchy of who you should love “more” and who should get less. While your actual heart is in trouble if it gets too big, your figurative heart can expand endlessly.

The Emotional and Physical Toll of Caring for a Sick Dog

We know that caregivers of humans undergo considerable stress. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, “Caregivers often experience high levels of stress and emotional burden, sometimes even higher than the patient they’re caring for.” 

 

Caregivers often experience emotional exhaustion, such as feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed. They experience physical fatigue, such as sleep disturbances and persistent tiredness. They can have difficulty concentrating or pull away from friends and their community. They can experience a lack of social recognition when friends and family do not validate the stress of caring for a chronically ill loved one. Believe me when I tell you that I have felt ALL of these things in the last few years. 

 

The added layer of complexity of taking care of a sick dog is that dogs cannot tell us how they feel. The fact that they cannot speak in words – something that makes our bond so special in the first place – makes caring for them extra complicated.

 

We know dogs are sentient beings. We know they feel joy, stress, pain, and peace. But we can’t ask them what symptoms they are feeling, or what might make them feel better. We cannot ask them if they felt better on Medication A or Medication B. We cannot ask them what they think they might be able to eat if they are rejecting their usual diet.

 

We have to guess. We have to decide for them. That guessing game can quietly tear you apart, especially when their condition worsens. Because not only can you not ask them if their stomach hurts or which NSAID made their arthritis feel better, you cannot ask them the next-step questions, like:

 

1. Are you still happy lying in the grass, breathing in the breeze?
2. Does your body feel tired in a way you no longer enjoy?
3. Are the tummy rubs, naps, and quiet time outside enough when you can’t run like you used to?
4. Do you still want to keep fighting this fight? Do you want me to still keep looking for a solution?

 

Since we cannot ask those questions, instead we monitor their symptoms and track how they react to medications. We do our best to interpret their pain. We keep consulting our vets and doing tests, despite overwhelming vet bills. We keep trying until they are better, or until they give us the look that says they are tired and don’t want to try anymore.

 

There is a saying that when you are coaching or educating people, they want to learn from your scars but not see your wounds. I have been very open on my private social media pages about the day-to-day updates on my dogs’ various medical problems, and I often wonder if I should dial it back a notch. But the truth is, I want people to understand what pet ownership could entail.

 

I want people to understand that while your dog may never be as sick as some of mine have been, it is also possible that they might have to navigate similar challenges. That they might have 6 different prescriptions on an elaborate timetable. That they might be hand-feeding their dog frozen blueberries one day, and baked flounder the next, to give them something in their stomach for the day. That they might be doing “butt checks” (and spot cleaning the carpet) because their dog is so doped up on pain meds that they don’t realize that poop is oozing out while they sleep. And that’s just the last 3 days with Tinkerbell’s chronic liver problems.

 

Knowing this, I am trying to give myself massive heaps of grace. It helps me validate my feelings that thinking this is hard does not mean I am weak or not a good dog owner; it just means that I am doing a tough job.

My Journey Through My Dogs’ Chronic Illness

It’s been four years of managing medication schedules, vet appointments, and medical setbacks. First, Jax and his year-long battle with melanoma, then Tink’s chronic copper storage in her liver, and Quill’s myasthenia gravis journey.

 

And even though I would never not do this for them—I’m allowing myself to admit: It’s hard.

 

It’s worth it, it’s what you sign up for when you get a dog. In my mind and my heart, it’s a non-negotiable that you will do this and be there for them. But it’s still hard.

 

All I want is for my dogs to be healthy, pain-free, and to feel joy in their days.

I don’t expect my twelve-year-old Lab to run wild in the yard like she did when she was five. But as long as I see that spark in her eyes, as long as I feel that she’s still in this with me, we will keep showing up.

 

We will keep fighting the fight.

 

Even if giving up was an option, which it is not, I never back down from a fight like this. At least not until my dogs tell me it is time to stop fighting. I would never keep pushing them through an illness unless I felt confident that there was a cure in sight.

 

With Jax, this meant fighting his cancer when we knew there was a chance he could survive, but also switching to palliative care once we learned that it had spread throughout his lungs and lymph nodes. With Tink, recent X-rays and ultrasounds show that her issues are still that her liver is affected, but not so bad that it cannot bounce back. Had we seen signs of cancer or tumors in other parts of her body, we would not have made her suffer in any way. But we’ve gone through this before, the exact same lack of appetite and pursuit of the proper medications to get her liver inflammation down and her appetite back up.

Tinkerbell’s Final Days and the Grief That Follows

I wrote this post on July 1 and stepped away to give it a final edit before posting it. The evening of July 3, I noticed that Tinkerbell was having a tough time walking. At dinner time, she was able to go outside, go potty, and nibble on some chicken treats. By bedtime, though, she would not get up for our last potty break of the night. I noticed that she was extremely wobbly and could barely go the short distance from one side of our living room to the other. Over the next 12 hours, she steadily declined, and around 9 am on July 4, my husband and I took her to the vet one final time.

I thought about deleting this article and never sharing it. One month after her passing, all of those things that seemed so hard are things I would gladly do every single day for all of eternity. The vet appointments, the cooking to see if there was anything at all she would eat, the search for the right medicines to help her feel better, are all so easy compared to day-to-day life without her in it. The pain of not having our girl with us is a level of hard that exceeds anything we did to try to save her. 

 

I look back at how bad she must have felt, of what she might have had going on internally that we could not see on ultrasounds, blood work, and X-rays. I know that we made the right decision that morning to send her to the Rainbow Bridge. The moment she let us know that this fight was hard on her was the moment we stopped fighting to save her and started fighting to give her comfort.

 

Tinkerbell’s death has hit us hard. I am someone who wants to share stories and photos and talk about all of the memories with her. I will cry and show my emotions. My husband does not show his grief in this way, so I was extremely touched when he said he is planning on getting a memorial tattoo of her nose print with Tinkerbell wings. It will be such a perfect tribute; when you name your girl Tinkerbell, she will, of course, get very special Pixie-style angel wings.

 

I guess the takeaway from this is that taking care of a chronically sick dog is hard. It’s hard on us, it’s hard on them. But it’s what we sign up to do the moment they step that first paw into our home.

 

Choosing to stop fighting this type of fight is even harder. But it’s also what we have signed up for. And while some might think that losing them, of having your dogs pass away, is the hardest thing. But to me, the hardest thing of all would have been not to have them in my life at all. So I will keep doing these hard things, because there are so many easier, happier days that make it all worth it.