Today has been a pretty awful day.
My family adopted a 1-2 year old lab/shepherd mix about 5 years ago. He was a rescue and once he settled into our family he turned out to be a great dog. He was not friendly with other dogs outside of our home, but loved our senior dog and our young children. Friendly, gentle, and always wanting companionship and to offer the same.
He was a terrible shedder, and randomly my wife thought maybe he could benefit from a grooming appointment, just to get a bath and have some of his excess hair brushed out. He had never been to the groomer before since he doesn't need his hair cut.
I dropped him off. I knew he didn't want to go it, the same way he doesn't want to go outside in the rain to go to the bathroom before bed, or go to the vet for his shots. Trying to tug and back up in the opposite direction. He has actually pulled himself clean out of his collar doing that and I was really worried he might do that today because the groomer is on a busy road. After trying to coax him in for a few minutes I thought to myself "Forget this, he's going to get loose and run into traffic trying to get him in the door, I'll just bring him home this isn't that important". I gave it one more try, and he finally listened and went inside.
About 20 minutes after dropping him off the groomer called and said he was not doing well and they thought I should come pick him up. I fought with my kids trying to get them to get their shoes and coats back on and get in the car so we could hurry over there. Probably took us 10-15 minutes to get there, and on the way there they called saying "You need to hurry, we think he needs to go to the hospital"
I got there and he was laying down not moving, labored breathing, he acknowledged my presence by looking at me but that was about it. There was a vet right down the street, they helped me get him in the car, we got him into the vet within 5 minutes. About 15 minutes later he was gone.
I'm really struggling. My kids are devastated. My wife obviously feels tremendous guilt for making this appointment that wasn't even necessary. I feel tremendous guilt that I forced him in when he didn't want to go, and that I even thought to myself, F this, this is not that important, and then forced him in anyhow. He was young, healthy, no known issues.
The vet said he probably had some kind of underlying health issue, heart issue kind of thing, and the stress of being in that unfamiliar environment was too much for him to take.
Has anyone seen something similar, with stress seemingly being too much for a young, healthy dog?
My family adopted a 1-2 year old lab/shepherd mix about 5 years ago. He was a rescue and once he settled into our family he turned out to be a great dog. He was not friendly with other dogs outside of our home, but loved our senior dog and our young children. Friendly, gentle, and always wanting companionship and to offer the same.
He was a terrible shedder, and randomly my wife thought maybe he could benefit from a grooming appointment, just to get a bath and have some of his excess hair brushed out. He had never been to the groomer before since he doesn't need his hair cut.
I dropped him off. I knew he didn't want to go it, the same way he doesn't want to go outside in the rain to go to the bathroom before bed, or go to the vet for his shots. Trying to tug and back up in the opposite direction. He has actually pulled himself clean out of his collar doing that and I was really worried he might do that today because the groomer is on a busy road. After trying to coax him in for a few minutes I thought to myself "Forget this, he's going to get loose and run into traffic trying to get him in the door, I'll just bring him home this isn't that important". I gave it one more try, and he finally listened and went inside.
About 20 minutes after dropping him off the groomer called and said he was not doing well and they thought I should come pick him up. I fought with my kids trying to get them to get their shoes and coats back on and get in the car so we could hurry over there. Probably took us 10-15 minutes to get there, and on the way there they called saying "You need to hurry, we think he needs to go to the hospital"
I got there and he was laying down not moving, labored breathing, he acknowledged my presence by looking at me but that was about it. There was a vet right down the street, they helped me get him in the car, we got him into the vet within 5 minutes. About 15 minutes later he was gone.
I'm really struggling. My kids are devastated. My wife obviously feels tremendous guilt for making this appointment that wasn't even necessary. I feel tremendous guilt that I forced him in when he didn't want to go, and that I even thought to myself, F this, this is not that important, and then forced him in anyhow. He was young, healthy, no known issues.
The vet said he probably had some kind of underlying health issue, heart issue kind of thing, and the stress of being in that unfamiliar environment was too much for him to take.
Has anyone seen something similar, with stress seemingly being too much for a young, healthy dog?
