But Wait- Didn't Nikko Die of Liver Cancer?

In the initial post of this blog I described briefly the events on the evening that Nikko was euthenized, but I only told part of the story. Here's the whole account, in the interest of honesty and full disclosure.

For a couple of months prior to his death, Nikko had begun to lose weight. My wife, a nurse by proffession and sensitive to these things, noticed and commented on it. Sometime in December of 2006 she began to buy Nutro canned dog food. We had two dogs, Nikko and Garrick, a border collie, and we had always fed them Nutro dry food. Garrick is a bit on the heavy side, and really didn't need "extra" nutrition, and she would often feed Nikko the canned food separately from him, although she did give Garrick some of the canned from time-to-time (to keep his nose in joint).

On Saturday, Feb 17, as we were leaving the house my wife made a sadly prescient comment about Nikko; "I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to that dog...". She had noticed a change in his demeanor, and was worried that he was getting sick.

On Sunday he was showing definite signs of not feeling well; he wasn't his usual bouncy self, and he was particularly needy of attention. He was asking to go outside at odd hours.

By Monday he was clearly ill. We had seen similar behavior in the past, usually about once a year, and it was always a case of "something-he-ate", and would pass in a few days with antibiotics and a bland diet of ground beef and rice. In this case she continued feeding him the Nutro canned - "Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Adult Lamb & Rice Formula Chunks in Gravy", to be precise. In fact it was all that he would eat- nothing else that was offered would he touch. He was also unusually thirsty.

On that fateful Tuesday, as I noted, he wouldn't even lay down, but sat there wobbling pathetically, eyes half open, because he was exhausted and wanted to sleep. I work nights and sleep during the day, usually after noon-ish. However I sat up late into the afternoon with him, and he couls barely stand, or navigate the stairs.. I finally went to sleep at about 3pm.

My wife woke me up at about 7pm to inform me that she had made an appointment for him with our regular Vet in Lombard for the next afternoon, and that I would have to take him. I asked her if there was a 24-hour Vet, and she said there was one in Lisle, about 1.5 miles from our house. We decided to take him right then...

Flash forward to the consultation room- the Vet, Dr. Sample, has informed us that Nikko is in shock and renal failure, for inderterminate reasons. His kidneys have shut down catastrophicly, and he needs to be stabilized, via transfusions and fluids, before they can even diagnose a cause. We're offered the most difficult, grim choice; commit to about $6000 worth of treatment (with 25% up-front required to begin treatment) with no guaranteed outcome, or 'humane euthenasia'.

We discussed it for a short while, and then asked if we could get a revised "24-hour estimate" (their terminology) to begin trying to save him, and they agree. The revised paperwork includes work totalling around $2400 for the initial 24-hours treatment. We were allowed to go into the ER and see him before going home.

We were home for about 20 minutes when the Dr. Sample called us and informed my wife that an MRI had discovered tumors on his liver, which was itself enlarged. It was decided at that point to euthenize him, we returned to the hospital, and at about 11:32pm that night it was done.

Those are the 'clinical' facts, and of course at the time we hadn't even heard of Menu Foods, or chinese rat poison. And I supposed that it can be pointed out that the revelations of liver cancer can damage my claim that it was their poison food that killed my dog, but after the claim is in process they will see these facts in the records in anyway, so there's no point in me hiding them.

In fact it wasn't until days after I'd heard about the pet foods recall- and dismissed them- that I read that a major symptom of the posioning was kidney failure, which was the first diagnostic expression from the vet's mouth to us- "shock and renal failure".

I began to wonder... but surely the recall involved cute-rate generic brands from Wal-Mart, right? It was my wife who shortly thereafter confirmed that Nutro Brands were on the list, and that we indeed had cans of the tainted food in our kitchen that very moment (I still have them now, of course).

So my Nikko was ill with undiagnosed liver cancer. It probably accounts for the weight loss, it may probably have made him more susecptible to the poisoning, but it does not excuse the fact that he was fed poison from a trusted source, and suffered and died because of it.

I don't want to get rich from a claim against Menu Foods, nor do I wish for punitive damages (I don't want to have to sue them, in other words), I simply want to be reimbursed for the treatment, and the cost to replace. I can write off my grief and my many tears- which still come to this day over that wonderful animal- as the price of sharing the planet with 'corporate-citizens' who'll do anything for a buck. This shit happens every day... as they say in Mother Russia, "some days you eat the bear, other days the bear eat you".