- Joined
- Dec 15, 2010
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
I'm in a dilema as to whether or not to get our pig put down.
Her name is Josie and she is at least 6 years old, possibly 7. She started losing weight rapidly last summer. We took her to the vet and he found that as well as having blood in her urine she also had a very high level of white blood cells in her blood indicating some sort of infection. He diagnosed a bladder infection and he put her on anti biotics for a couple of weeks. He repeated the tests and her urine was fine, but there were still white blood cells in her blood, albeit not as many as there had been two weeks previously. He said that he could find nothing else wrong with her and that we should monitor her condition.
Fast forward to October - we noticed that she was moving quite slowly and that her back legs had become stiff, we presumed that this was just due to her age and thought nothing of it since she was still eating well. Then one morning about 4 weeks ago when I went to feed the pigs (it was below freezing outside, but the pigs live in our spare room) I noticed that Josie had trouble standing up and was dragging her back legs behind her. So we took her to the vets again, another x ray showed that she had "slight" arthritis in her back legs which was probably agitated by the cold weather outside. He prescribed us pain killers and some homeopathic drops for her joints. Inititially her joints became better and she was moving around ok, but since the weekend (again temperature drop outside) she has hardly any control over her back legs and just drags them behind her, to me it is almost like she has had a stroke. The vet said on Monday that we should perservere with the prescribed treatment and that in his opinion she just has arthritis, however since last weekend all she does is lie in her house, twisted up in her own excrement. She is however eating and doesn't SEEM to be in any pain.
We have had 2 pigs put down previously, but they were both lost causes and in both cases euthanasia was the right decision, but here we are not 100 percent certain. I have read about animals with arthritis becoming more mobile and responding well to a prolonged treatment, however I'm wondering whether she has more than just arthritis due to the blood tests from last summer that showed an unexplained infection. What do i do?
Her name is Josie and she is at least 6 years old, possibly 7. She started losing weight rapidly last summer. We took her to the vet and he found that as well as having blood in her urine she also had a very high level of white blood cells in her blood indicating some sort of infection. He diagnosed a bladder infection and he put her on anti biotics for a couple of weeks. He repeated the tests and her urine was fine, but there were still white blood cells in her blood, albeit not as many as there had been two weeks previously. He said that he could find nothing else wrong with her and that we should monitor her condition.
Fast forward to October - we noticed that she was moving quite slowly and that her back legs had become stiff, we presumed that this was just due to her age and thought nothing of it since she was still eating well. Then one morning about 4 weeks ago when I went to feed the pigs (it was below freezing outside, but the pigs live in our spare room) I noticed that Josie had trouble standing up and was dragging her back legs behind her. So we took her to the vets again, another x ray showed that she had "slight" arthritis in her back legs which was probably agitated by the cold weather outside. He prescribed us pain killers and some homeopathic drops for her joints. Inititially her joints became better and she was moving around ok, but since the weekend (again temperature drop outside) she has hardly any control over her back legs and just drags them behind her, to me it is almost like she has had a stroke. The vet said on Monday that we should perservere with the prescribed treatment and that in his opinion she just has arthritis, however since last weekend all she does is lie in her house, twisted up in her own excrement. She is however eating and doesn't SEEM to be in any pain.
We have had 2 pigs put down previously, but they were both lost causes and in both cases euthanasia was the right decision, but here we are not 100 percent certain. I have read about animals with arthritis becoming more mobile and responding well to a prolonged treatment, however I'm wondering whether she has more than just arthritis due to the blood tests from last summer that showed an unexplained infection. What do i do?