Dustin LindenSmith

I brought in our almost-7-year-old yellow Lab Sage for a full dental yesterday, and the vet did some pre-op bloodwork before going under general anaesthetic for the teeth cleaning. The results, to our sad surprise, showed that he's in renal failure -- i.e. his kidneys aren't functioning properly. His creatinine level, which should be less than 100, was four times that. His prognosis is not good.

We had a good cry about this last night, abandoning our rules about no dogs on the couch and cuddling with him all evening. He was drowsy, pliable and punch-drunk as the effects from the anaesthetic slowly wore off. Zoë doesn't really understand what's happening, being only 3, but she'll probably catch on later if and when Sage gets sicker. Right now he doesn't really have too many symptoms other than weight loss which started in late summer and some coughing, a bit of vomiting, and copious drinking and peeing.

We'll know more details in the next few days and weeks after we get some more comprehensive bloodwork back from the vet college in PEI and we get some serial bloodwork done to see what his creatinine levels are over time. But from what we know so far, Sage probably can't be expected to survive too much longer than a year. Hopefully he'll prove us wrong on that, though! :)

Dogs are so funny. I love dogs more than many humans I know, and Sage was our first puppy and our first little baby. I cried more for him yesterday than I cried for myself last fall when I was [mis]diagnosed with terminal cancer. Silly little puppy. I can't even type out this entry without tears.