LAST THROW OF THE DICE?

After six months of suffering from his dilated cardiomyopathy heart problem, our faithful and much loved retriever, Henry, is now taking the strongest medication available in an attempt to shift the build up of fluid around his heart.

For all that time, he has been on varying degrees of medication which has grown steadily until it has now reached no less than 19 pills each day. That cannot be good for him even though he still manages to get some enjoyment out of life.

Our last visit to ace vet Dave Cocker yesterday saw him prescribe the strongest available dosage to try and help the problem, but it seems that each time the dosage is increased, Henry improves for a while, but then slips back. This time, we are hopeful that the latest dosage might stabilise things for a while longer but, if not, then in all probability, there may be nothing more to be done for Henry. What we won`t allow is for him to suffer in any way, having said which it is, of course, very distressing. We had three golden retrievers before Henry, who has been with us for getting on for 10 years. We lost the others rather suddenly, for various reasons, but Henry`s problems have been draw out over months, which seems to have made it worse for us as well as for him. As I said before, it ain`t easy. And it hurts.