So last week (on Friday) my brakes went out. On Saturday Steve was changing them at our house. He went to the back to get our car jack from under Shawn's car and when he moved it there was some anti-freeze that he didn't notice dripped out. Sometime in the day Harley went out back to potty and licked some up (we didn't see him do it - we found out later). Apparently anti-freeze is sweet and pets like to like it. A few hours later Harley started to get a belly ache and started to have diarrhea and throw up. We just assumed that he was sick (we still didn't know about the anti-freeze). Steve walked around to the house to see if he could see anything that he got into and that is when he saw the fluid. We just thought he would get it out with diarrhea and throw up. Be Sunday Night he was doing worse. He wouldn't even get his head off of the pillow. He was so lethargic. It was super sad. Sunday Evening Steve and I decided to take him to the Pet ER. We got him up to Cottonwood Animal ER around 9:30pm. The Doctors did some tests on him. They came up with that he did in fact have anti freeze in his system. This is when we found out how bad it is for pets. We found out that a HUGE percentage of animals that eat anti-freeze actually die. The Doctor suggested that because Harley was SO dehydrated he should keep him over night for a couple of days. He said he was in kidney failure and then it would go to his liver. This is when I asked how much this was going to cost. I really love my dog (I thought that I would NEVER say that about an animal), but I can't afford thousands of dollars. He said it was going to be about $500 - $600 a day with tests and everything else. It might go down in price after the first couple of days. UUUMmmmm I am not sure about you guys but I can't afford that much money for my dog... my kids yes but not a pet. We asked what our alternatives were and he suggested that we take him home (basically to die) and to keep him hydrated he would show us how to inject his body with fluid. Basically keep him comfortable and love him for the rest of his short life. We were pretty devastated.
We decided to come home and get some rest (it was 1:30am by the time we left) and then the next day Steve and I would spend the day with him and tell the kids as soon as they got home from school. We during the day he got worse and worse and worse. We just hoped that he would make it for our kids. I think that Steve and I cried pretty much all day. It was really hard to know that we were going to have to tell the kids as soon as they got home.
When the kids got home Steve and I were sitting on the couch waiting for them. They walked in and knew that something was wrong. Except for Shawn, they didn't even know that we had taken him to the Vet. When Steve told them what was going on they all four immediately started to cry... uncontrollably. Which really made it harder to explain everything. We told them that the Doctor didn't give a very great chance of living. We told them that the Doctor told us that we should decide if we would want the Doctor to put him to sleep and take care of his body or if we should let him just die at our house with us around him and then we would decide as a family where to bury him. They picked that he die at our house and we would pick where we bury him. They thought maybe (if we promised to live here forever) we could bury him here at the house so they could go out to visit him every day. That was so sad to think about.
We decided to take a whole bunch of pictures with him. We were all sobbing. I could hardly even see through the lense to take the picture. I had no idea I loved him so much.
The kids were so cute they just took turns holding him. It really was tender. Our family is lucky and hasn't had to deal with death yet with anyone even Great Grandparents. We didn't really know how to deal with this.
Well with a whole lot of prayers and a whole lot of luck Harley slowly started to do better. By about Wednesday or Thursday he was on the mend. I think that now he is back (almost) to himself. He is still a little tired but that is understandable. I hope that he stays in our family for a long long while. We are happy that the kids decided to have hope that the doctors would be wrong and he would live. We all really love him.
WELCOME BACK HARLEY ~ WE LOVE YOU... STAY AWHILE!
