Coping with the Grief of Pet Loss

It's been a long time here between updates, and there's a reason for that. I'm sad to say that Pete, our beloved Chihuahua, succumbed to his congestive heart failure in November, just a couple of days before Thanksgiving. As heartbroken as we are to lose him, we're also enormously thankful that he passed away peacefully in his sleep. As far as we can tell, his heart simply stopped in the middle of the night, while he was all cozy and tucked into bed beside me. It was exactly how we were praying he'd go when his time came, sparing him from suffering and sparing us from having to make a decision we didn't feel prepared to make.

Besides being an excellent pet sling model, Pete was the best little buddy anyone could ask for. He had enough personality for a dog a hundred times his size, and enough love to match. At the risk of offending those who take offense at those who love their dogs like children, he was our furry little surrogate son, our consolation for not being able to have human children. His death hit us hard. Six weeks later, our grief hasn't even begun to diminish. There are no words adequate to express how much we miss him. It's amazing, how vast and large a void such a tiny little pupper could leave behind.

As mentioned in the post linked above, we came close to losing him last summer. Putting him on spironolactone alongside his lasix gave him tremendous relief, although being on so much diuretic medication really sapped his energy. Even so, I believe it added a few months onto his life. I'd hoped it would be more, but I was also realistic enough to know it wouldn't be much more. With that said, we had gotten him to a point where we were able to taper off of the lasix and stop the spiro completely without any further breathing difficulties, a move that gave him back a lot of his pep and helped him feel better overall. The last day of his life was actually one of the best he'd had in a long time, which is why, in spite of all of his health issues, it came as a complete shock when we discovered him the following morning.

Grief is an emotion that I think a lot of people struggled with this past year, to varying degrees. It's never easy. Grieving the death of a beloved pet is never easy, and can be heightened by feeling like other people don't understand the bond you had with your furbaby or the full extent of your grief. In a year like 2020, when so many people are coping with the loss of human loved ones, many of whom didn't even get to say goodbye or hold proper funerals, these feelings can be compounded by guilt. Who am I to be so devastated by the loss of a dog when so many people are suffering such greater loss?

But it is what it is. Grief is grief, and pain is pain, and it's never healthy or helpful to compare our pain and grief to that of others, or to ask whether we have a right to feel it. Suppressing grief only makes it worse and can lead to depression. The only way out of grieving a loss is through -- you have to go through it, to let the hard feelings come, acknowledge them, and let them leave when they're good and ready.

Even in the best of times, even in the biggest of losses, I've always had a tendency to ignore my grief as much as possible. Not to suppress it, but to keep busy and distract myself from it -- a practice that never ends well. This time around, I'm giving my grief the time it needs, giving myself time to sit with it. Not to wallow in it, but simply to acknowledge it, and let myself feel what I feel without trying to distract myself from it. My husband is helping a lot with this, and just having him here, knowing that he loved Pete as much as I do, that he misses him as much as I do, that he understands what I'm feeling because he's feeling it too, is a big help.

I'd like to be able to provide some tips for coping with pet loss, but I'm still figuring this out. Even though this isn't exactly my first rodeo, so to speak, it's different with each pet. But here is a good article on Hills Pet about ways to cope with pet loss. And if you're dealing with other pets who are also grieving for their lost friend, here's an article I wrote on how the loss of a pet affects your other pets, and how to help them.

If you're struggling with the loss of a pet, I hope these help. And I hope it helps to know that you're not alone, and that your feelings are valid.

Rest in peace, sweet Pete.

 

Congestive Heart Failure in Dogs: Spironolactone is a Life Saver

(Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Chewy.com. We save quite a bit of money by ordering our pet meds through them, whenever possible. If you purchase anything through these links as a new customer, we'll earn a small referral fee at no extra cost to you.)

 

Our Chihuahua, Pete, was diagnosed with the terminal combination of congestive heart failure and pulmonary hypertension in fall of 2017. Since I was already knee-deep in research about both of these conditions, and as a way to cope, I pitched and eventually wrote articles for Hill’s Pet about both of these conditions. Between my writing and research and managing these conditions in my own dog, I thought I knew everything there was to know about how to treat them -- but it turns out, I’d missed something. 

Comfortable on a good day

 

While dogs with congestive heart failure can live for years with this disease if it’s well-managed, typically the prognosis for pets with both of these conditions is a few months at best. When we took our little guy in, he was struggling so badly to breathe that he had to be hospitalized and spent several days enclosed in an oxygen chamber. For my husband and I, who dote on this pup like he’s our furry surrogate son, it was a complete nightmare. We were given a 50-50 chance that he’d survive the weekend, and told that even if he did, he probably had “weeks to months” to live after that.

Thankfully, he did survive that hellish weekend, and we were able to take him home. From then on he was on a cocktail of medications that included the typical CHF treatments Enalapril and Vetmedin, the diuretic furosemide (brand name Lasix) to flush the excess fluid from his heart and lungs, and sildenafil (brand name Viagra, and let me tell you how much fun it’s been for my husband to call in that prescription) for the PH, to improve circulation in his lungs.

I’m extremely happy to tell you that his “weeks to months” prognosis stretched into many months, and then into years. We’re coming up on three years since Pete’s diagnosis, and thankfully, he’s still with us. Not only did the medications and lifestyle changes we made for him add years to his life, but he improved so much in those first months that we were able to discontinue the Lasix before it could start wearing on his kidneys.

Everything was fine, until about a year ago. He’d gone two years without any noticeable breathing problems, but last year he started having the occasional episode of labored breathing. We still had Lasix on hand from before, so under the direction of his vet, we’d administer a brief regimen until he got over the eposide, and then he would be fine. For a while, these episodes were so far apart that we would almost forget they’d even happened before he had another one. 

Listening for fluid buildup

 

The thing about congestive heart failure, though, is that it’s a progressive disease. The medications can slow it down, but they can’t stop it completely.

This summer, the episodes started becoming more and more frequent, and more and more severe. We started keeping him on Lasix, but it wasn’t helping. We’d increase the dosage, and that would help for a few days, but even as it helped we could hear the fluid rapidly building back up in his chest. His vet gently and lovingly advised us to do what we could to keep him comfortable and prepare to say goodbye.

One of my coping mechanisms when faced with something like this is to do research. I wanted to know what to expect when the end came for our baby boy. By the grace of God, I came across an article on the end stages of congestive heart failure in dogs that mentioned spironolactone, another type of diuretic drug that works on the kidneys in a different area than Lasix, and can sometimes compensate when Lasix begins to lose its effectiveness -- which was exactly what was happening with our little pup.

We immediately asked Pete’s vet about it, whose opinion was, basically: can’t hurt, might help. So she called in a prescription and we added it to his regimen ASAP.

It’s been about a month now, and so far, so good. Other than some mild bouts of wheezing here and there, Pete’s been breathing easy and back to enjoying life. 

Still full of life and love

 

I’m not under any illusions that this is a cure, or even a long-lasting solution. But for now, spironolactone for congestive heart failure in dogs has saved our little guy’s life, and given us more time to enjoy our best little buddy. I’m sharing this so that if you’re in the same boat we were in a month ago, you’ll know that there’s one more thing you can try before giving up on your fur-kid. Believe me, even if it only gives them “weeks to months” of extended life, the extra time with them is worth it.