We had two Bullmastiffs … Kona would have been 2 in June and Kyro will be 2 in Nov. We lost our Bull Terrier Willow in Sept with bladder stones. She was over 9. I had brought her from NL with me when I moved here.
In April Kona developed urine crystals so we changed her food and put her on antibiotics. She was 10 lbs overweight, not for a Bullmastiff but for her body size. She had some labored breathing, we thought it was due to her being overweight. Alanna and I went to NL for ten days and we boarded her and Kyro. With exercise she lost 6 lbs. She continued to be relatively upbeat but then the past week she could not go upstairs without puffing and panting, even at rest. She could still eat but would not go walking. She could not find a comfortable position to lie down and she would sit like a horse, on her tailbone with her front legs in between them and her back legs flopped open this past week. We took her for blood on Thurs and nothing showed up. Yesterday morning I took her in for a heart x ray and there was so much fluid around it the vet could barely see the heart and told me that she was in congestive heart failure. I did suspect heart because she was exhibiting the same symptoms as my mom had. We decided to have her put to sleep because CHF is a time bomb. You don’t know when it will strike. We could not face bringing her home knowing that she was in such distress, she had to be stress free and would be on medication for life, the diuretics would make her pee every 15 minutes, she could not do stairs. CHF is not curable, only treatable for a time, until your time runs out, basically you are stroking off days on a calendar. Because of getting this at a young age her life span was automatically shortened by years. She could have had one month, one year or one day. As sad as we are, we know that she is no longer unhappy and in distress. Our vet said that in Chinese medicine the heart is the organ of joy and happiness. When one grieves in sadness, this can bring on heart failure. Kona never got over her friend Willow’s passing last September.
Toby