[Magdalen] Advice - Malcolm

[Rick Mashburn]

Dear friends,

It's been a hard day at our house. As some of you know, Malcolm was
diagnosed with calcium oxalate bladder stones for some years now. He's been
on meds to balance the Ph in his urine (believed to pre-dispose dogs to
these types of stones) with success for the last 3 or 4 years.

In the last six months, the number of stones has increased and he's needed
hydropropulsion therapy multiple times. Last week, that stopped working. He
was at the vet on Thursday and Friday but they were not able to clear his
urethra. In spite of taht, on Friday night, he was able to urinate almost
normally and to a lesser extent on Saturday. Today, it has gotten much
worse. He is able to urinate but not very much and it's obvious he is not
able to empty his bladder.

We are walking him more frequently so he can empty his bladder as much as
possible but we know this is not a sustainable situation. The worst case
scenario would be a ruptured bladder which would be painful and traumatic
for all of us. I can't stand the thought of that happening to him.

We've been in touch with a vet who makes house calls. They provide
euthenasia in a gentle, supportive way that would let us say goodbye to him
without trauma. But, the thought of saying goodbye too soon is also hard to
imagine.

I know many, many of you have had to make this agonizing decision. What
made the difference for you? What is the right criteria? We don't want to
make a decision too quickly but I'm afraid that is mostly just selfishness.
I don't want to say goodbye at all but the window for that is closing --
and could close even more quickly than we imagine.

We know our hearts will be broken either way. We want to do the right thing
for Malcolm.

Much love,

Rick