I have found comfort here before from caring pet owners during a pet crisis, and felt the need to visit here again.

After months of dealing with kidney failure and unknown lung disease in our 18-year-old Abby kitty, we lost her in January. I was doing daily subcutaneous fluids for the last month, and finally her lungs were so bad we couldn't go on.

Two months later our approximately 14-year-old shelter dog Sport died after a sudden illness. He had lost some weight in the last year but had remained active and happy. I had been top-dressing his food with some canned Iams over the winter to encourage his appet*ite and try to help him gain weight, but he developed vomiting and diarrhea about 3 weeks ago.

Took him to the vet on a Friday morning and by Saturday night he was gone. Now I see that the food I was giving him was on the recall list, though I no longer have any cans here and can't really prove it.

Talk about guilt. These two were our most elderly pets and had been here through my children's childhoods. I did all I could for Abby, but Sport's passing was a shock. And now I feel quite sure that he died because of this contaminated food.

Yes, he was probably 14, but he had time left. How to cope with this rationally? Placing blame and lawsuits are not an answer in our case, though I'm sure that is going to happen to the company at fault as this story proceeds. I'm angry and confused. Iams used to be the "good stuff" that we fed our show dogs in the mid 70's, and I'm sorry, but I'll never buy it again.

I am so sorry...I wish I could say something to comfort you.

You were caring for Sport, doing the best you could by him, giving him a good life. He knows this, and takes your love with you.

I would b tempted with a lawsuit, but they never seem to turn out well. Grieve your well-loved buddys, and lean on us.

I'll be thinking of you.

Thanks for your kind words.

I realize reading back over my message how dispassionate I sound. Maybe because I'm doped up on Nyquil, sick with a cold and months of stress related to worrying about my furry friends and their old age problems.

When Abby lost weight a year ago I found out she had chronic renal failure, and scoured the internet learning about the problem and what to watch for, how to care for her. Knowing when to say "enough" was the hardest part. I spent weeks dealing with a cat specialty clinic, testing, medicating, trying to assess how Abby was doing. The bedroom was like a hospital suite by the end, even running humidifiers for her lung problems, a special low bed for her near her litterbox, special food and of course the daily needles-and-fluid treatment.

It was exhausting for both of us, and on the heels of losing her, Sport became suddenly ill. He was a shelter dog, had been a member of the family for 12 years, has achieved sainthood in my mind with his passing. I couldn't bear the empty run and had gone to the shelter again within a week and found another spaniel to adopt.

It was perhaps too early, I was crying about my Sport even as I looked at the new dog, and the first night both the dog and my husband were looking at me funny as I sobbed over the fact that this new friend wasn't my Sport. She's herself and is turning out to be a good choice, and I have to admit that the distraction of caring for her and introducing her to the remaining cats has kept my mind off the pain of losing Sport. And it makes me feel good to give a home to another homeless animal.

Now this recall thing has introduced a new element to Sport's death. I was trying to help him by giving him yummy food and encouraging him to eat, and instead he died. I know it's not my fault, but I can't help but draw those guilty conclusions and what ifs.

Like everybody on this site, animals have been an important part of my life. They've been my friends when people didn't always come through for me. The best I can do at this point is keep an even keener eye on what's going on with my pets. Tomorrow I'm taking in one of the other older cats (in addition to those I've lost, we have six other cats in age from 16 to 6) whose coat has lost some luster and whose weight isn't as robust as I would like. He needs a dental and we'll check some bloodwork too.

If I could I'd keep them alive forever.

Thanks for reading.

I can't imagine how you must be feeling..I am so sorry for you.. did your vet diagnose him with the renal or liver failure that these other poor animals have been stricken with?

I understand your feelings about a lawsuit..it is extremely taxing, although I did battle a large corporation a couple of years back and I won, so it can be done.

I am truly so sorry for your losses and I hope you'll keep coming for support. I don't know what I would have done without this site..

I talked to my vet today after hearing about the recall and he doesn't think it was renal failure per se because they did blood work and said the kidney values were okay. His theory was more a toxin or bacteria because the primary symptoms were uncontrollable diarrhea and vomiting. There's an aol story tonight about the recall in which they describe a two-year-old German Shepherd which is going to pull through but whose symptoms were also diarrhea and vomiting rather than simply renal failure, so who knows how this will all unravel.

Here's the hitch - after what we went through with Abby and the speciality clinic, my husband asked me to stick with our local guy from now on - he's basically large and small animal and a very caring person, but not a small animal specialist. I don't want to say that I don't trust his opinion because he's done some good work for me, but he's a far cry from the level of care that we had with the specialty clinic which was, to be honest, perhaps too much care.

Deciding how much care is enough is turning out to be one of the toughest decisions with our geriatric animal household.

I'm so very sorry you've had this triple-whammy of loss heaped on you (triple because of the food suspicion) in so short a time. I don't blame you for trying to look into it further as I think your suspicions may turn out to be right, with similar symptoms in other animals coming to light. And when we lose our babies, we always have a need to know WHY, exactly, if it's possible to find out.

I'm rather hoping a class action suit might come about because of this, in which case it would be a lot easier for people to pursue some justice for these untimely and unnecessary deaths of their family members.

I know how difficult it is to achieve that 'correct' balance for our furkids when they're geriatric and having to contend with diseases and conditions on top of old age.....just like ailing parents who are elderly....but worse, in my mind, because they're our own kids! We had specialists for Nissa, too, mainly in her last 6 months, and I had to do a lot of hard thinking and discussion with her homeopathic and holistic vets about how many things we should subject her to. Sometimes I think you need more than one 'camp' because I know how many specialists push TOO many things on you, whether that's just to make more money or because they can't see the forest for the trees.

For Nissa, they were pushing for some ultrasounds to check her heart function, kidney condition, etc. and I ended up deciding it was useless to put her through more trauma than she already was going through with blood pressure and glaucoma checks every few weeks (and her other stuff), because even IF they'd found something else (like cancer, or worsening heart problems), we'd already refused a suggested surgery for her damaged eye (from the sudden high blood pressure), knowing she might die on the table, away from us (and her communicator got the same opinion from her), so what would have been the point in knowing? I also found out that cats with her eye condition usually didn't have their eye 'explode' on them, as they'd first told me, so was content with my decisions. And it turned out that her eye pressure went down extraordinarily with our other treatments anyway, so I was even gladder we hadn't gone that route. Even the internist had to agree that these tests would be rather pointless if she had cancer, too, because they couldn't treat her with chemo, etc. anyway because of her age and kidney failure. So it pays to question EVERY doc's reasoning and theories.

I know I wouldn't put all of my trust in either a (partially) large animal vet OR a specialist, but would try to find even more vets who might offer more suggestions or expertise, and THEN try to wade through all the different info. It's not easy, but then neither is it any different than when a human family member gets ill.

When exactly did they do this bloodwork for Sport? If it wasn't right at the time of acute illness, then it may not be accurate because kidney values can change remarkably quickly, especially if it's acute kidney failure. There may even be one determining factor/cause from that food, but just like everything, one individual's response and symptoms may be quite different from another's, so that not all animals would necessarily respond by going into kidney failure, but with something else. Just because they've found many cases of kidney failure in these affected animals, doesn't mean there haven't been other conditions as well, that just aren't being reported or 'hyped'.

But regardless of what the cause, I'm still so sorry for both Abby's and Sport's passings and all you've had to bear over such a long, and short, time. I know how exhausting it all is, on both us and our babies, so I also echo your sentiment that if we could only keep them alive as long as us! Me, I'm still trying to recover from the emotional, physical and mental exhaustion of caring for our darling girl for so long, and mainly from her last 6 months....and the grief on top of that. In the end, no matter the causes, we've still lost a precious family member who meant the world to us and THAT'S what we have to bear now.

I know everyone's different in how they approach and heal from grief, but I hope you will keep in mind that using 'distractions' too much to avoid the pain of loss doesn't help us heal very well in the long run. I know I was subconsciously doing that (still am to some extent but now I'm aware of it) in the first few months after Nissa's crossing, and it's only NOW that the devastation of my loss is coming through more heavily (almost 7 months after the fact). As they say, grief is patient and will wait for as long as it takes for us to finally tackle it. So enjoy your new baby as best you can, but make sure you take time as well for yourself to grieve as long and hard as you need to for both Abby and Sport.

Mizzou mom, very sorry about your losses, you did more than I ever could do, and after all the exhausting devotion , if it is the dog food that spoiled your good care, you are a saint not to be absolutely livid! FK Mom has shared her wisdom and knowledge, that is always much appreciated. I agree with her thoughts about the need to balance the medical interventions with our own judgment of how beneficial this will be for our pets. Of course when are on our own for such decisions it can be very difficult, there is no formula to follow when our pets become sick, and the way to go about it becomes uncharted territory and can leave pet owners so vulnerable.
I much admire your devotion and your pets were blessed to have you.

My experience with large animal vets is that they have practical sides to them: in the case of a healthy pet they can save you some money and do the visits at home so this is less stressful. But I would now be very nervous about using them for any symptoms in pets because they haven't the experience small pet vets do and generally they deal with younger animals. I have deep regrets of having relied on them for my two 13 year old house cats (lost both this last Oct and Nov ). In 2003 one cat started to twitch at imaginary mosquitos and would take off running as if in fear of them. He would do that occasionally and it distressed him so much. Hearing of this, the large animal vet gave me a wormer. Now I know that it was an early symptom of diabetes and that my baby had diabetes for 3 and a half years before neuropathy symptoms made me take my cat to a regular veterinary clinic. (His only other symptoms were less agility and a bit of weight loss which we attributed to his age.) Now I realize that his last 3 years were probably more miserable than we knew, he slept so much I was pleased to see my big orange cat so lazy...it pains me so much to know that he may not have been feeling that good when he lay quiet. Would a small animal vet have known about these symptoms? Probably more than someone who treats horses and cows although I have no guarantee.
I have heard that veterinarians don't make very much money, so it would be
normal that they encourage us to pursue treatments that are questionable- subconsciously they know they need to pay the bills.

About food, we have barn cats and so does an acquaintance of mine who is a vet. Her cats are fed dry cat food and I feed mine ground beef + small amount of dry food (that only the skunks eat!!!)Most of my cats are too wild to vaccinate and most of her cats get vaccines. Common acquaintances are surprised to see that her cats are runny nosed and teary eyed and mine are clear eyed without vaccines. (To be fair there was a period(15 years ago) where I lost almost all my barn cats to distemper but they don't have it anymore. I think it has to do with the quality of the food and wonder why it is that while many farmers are unable find markets for some of their animals, pet owners have to do with food from thousands of miles away, food that is mostly corn and little meat protein!

MizzouMom

Two losses so soon together, it's so hard, my heart goes out to you. I'm sorry you are not feeling well either.

I'm so sorry to hear about your Abby kitty. You were blessed to have her 18 years, I know it's just not enough. You gave her wonderful care and loved her as much as you could. I know she loved you back.

I'm sorry you lost Sport too. Honey you were doing your very best for him, I know you know that. Maybe it was the food and maybe it was something else, he was 14. No matter how much time we have with them it's just never enough.

Like Maya Angelou says "you do the best you can with what you know, when you know better, you do better". Guilt is part of grief so we latch onto the things we could have done different, done better. The fact is you can only do the best you can with what you know, and you did.

I admire how much you did do to help Abby. You are a great mom and all your kids are blessed to have you. I know you feel blessed to have them. So much love. I'm glad you have a new baby to help you through this.

Thinking of you, your family, Abby and Sport

Thank you all for your thoughts and kind words.

Guilt has always been a major issue for me when I lose one of my "kids". I found some good help in an article at another pet loss site by Moira Anderson Allen (called Breaking the Power of Guilt) that talks about our relationships with our pets and the forgiveness that exists on both sides, and how we honor our pets by giving a home to another pet in need. That helped me to decide that I needed to go ahead and bring home another dog.

Part of the decision to allow distraction to provide healing was because of my situation in life - my youngest child is in college, most of the pets are geriatric, I've lost my two horses in the past 4 years, the older one was with me 23 years - we were young and beautiful together! :-) There are 10 animals buried on our property (including the horses) so I have graves to visit and tend, which helps. We've always adopted any cat that came along and could get along with the rest (provided they agree to neutering), and that list has included a once-in-a-lifetime cat (talk about a personality) who arrived with feline leukemia and only lasted two years as well as a cat that had to be 16 or 17 when she moved in and loved only me.

Facing the coming years of watching the pets age and die one by one was too painful. The new dog is silly and funny and cute, and she makes me feel young and gives me a reason to get up and take her for a walk. Yes she'll go too eventually, though maybe I'll go first, who of us knows how much time we have?

As for vets and choosing a level of care, we've been through it all: the normally good clinician who was also cold and disinterested in his profession, who misdiagnosed my kitty with a catgut reaction which actually had the blood parasite hemobartonella. A wonderful and very caring woman vet who read my post on these pages about my sick kitty contacted me to suggest I divide the dosage into smaller amounts because of how sick it was making her - it did the trick and I will thank her forever.

There's the excellent practice (technique-wise) that seems far more interested in payment than in communication; who after examining the pet goes to another room to print out the treatment list and $$$$$$$$ bottom line. They've moved from a nice facility to a multi-million dollar building and the att*itude of the staff has become exclusive as well.

There's the still-in-their-old-digs specialty cat place who came the closest to being the right place, but the testing testing testing with no end in sight or realistic discussion of prognosis eventually led me to agree to a less-aggressive care regime in the future (or sacrifice my good relationship with my husband).

A great and just-right vet is worth their weight in gold - they deserve to make a good living too, but there has to be a balance.

I'll be watching the fallout on this pet food recall - I'll never know for sure (Nissa's mom - I asked my vet this morning and he showed me the bloodwork - they tested Sport and his kidney values were okay the first day, but my vet said that could have changed by the second day. They were trying to control his vomiting with medication and fluids, also some antibiotics IV). There's no dollar value that could be placed on an old deaf ##er spaniel, though WE feel he was one of our children.

I'm grateful to have this forum to rant on - it takes animal people to understand how you feel.

Thanks to you all.

I'm so sorry about your loss. I found out that I also feed my cat, Leo some of the "bad" food. It hurts sooo much to think that I killed him just by feeding him. I know what your going through and empathize with you. And tour right no law suit will ever help. I'll be praying for you and your furrybabies. Sincerly, Alan

Alan,

I am upset about my old boy going before his time, but far more upset with the pet food company than I am feeling guilty. You had no way of knowing that the food you gave Leo was bad. We want to feel we can trust the people who produce our food and our pets' food.

I've read some other sites where people are talking about the food, and some of these folks actually had their pet get sick, propped them up enough at the vet's to come home, and then force fed more of the bad stuff to their pets thinking they were helping. I hope they pursue the company to the full extent of the law, and that the action keeps this from happening again.

Meanwhile, I'm spending extra time with the pets that are still here, every minute is precious.