Rehoming my sister in laws springer

[largeginandtonic]

Please help me help my sister in law.

They have a springer spaniel who is just a year. He's basically has irritable bowel syndrome and requires a super specialised diet.

He's had ongoing health issues with this usually resulting in vet stays. He is insured. They pay though the nose for it but the new vets (they moved) will not accept payment from the insurance comp. they have to pay upfront.

He costs a fortune in special food a month. Insurance payments and every month something else comes up. They worry he is suffering through their lack of money and needs better care.

ATM he has a seed stuck in his ear and needs to see the vet. They won't see him without payment. She's phoned the RSPCA people and various other places but as they are not on benefits no one will see him.

They want to rehome him. Both are incredibly sad about it all but just can not support him anymore. We have spent the day on the phone trying to get him re homed and seen.

The vets are looking in to rehoming him but we have not heard back.

What else can she do?

It's a horrible situation.

I am concerned that the OP thinks that this was the only cause of action and that it was the correct thing to do.

It was the wrong thing to do and there were alternatives on every aspect of the situation.

Anyone reading this thread that is in a similar situation needs to know that there will be rescues, there will be vets who charge differently and there is help with dogs with IBS. It can take time but there are solutions to all of the problems discussed with this dog.

Please do not let this happen to any other dogs in a similar situation.

I have a springer who is 15 months. Little sod has cost me a fortune so far, we are just on two weeks no walking for his third operation for a deeply slashed paw, not to mention the thorn in the eye, which didn't need an operation but was the costliest of the lot of his 'accidents'! Bloody Springers. But research the breed and you know this comes with the territory. Insurance has covered most of it but that's a lot of excesses!

I am not doubting your love of your animals OP but I am of your in laws. I am really sorry, it's black and white for me, if you are going to buy from a breeder then you spend time (possibly a lot of time) finding the right one. One who will provide lifetime advice, take the dog back at any point and help in this difficult situation. They have a commitment to that dog for life.

If you don't do this, then you are contributing to the breeding of dogs for the wrong reasons.

Again, with time, the separation anxiety could have been worked on. It takes months of time, there's a lady on here called moosemamma who has worked so bloody hard to help her lurcher when they lost their other dog. And the rescue pup that they got too.

I am really sorry, what a cautionary tale. I know in the massive scheme of things it's 'only a dog', but it's a life that was bought as a member of the family and all that this entails.

Vets and their "prescription" expensive diets. Many vets won't advocate raw feeding which astounds me as raw seems to have a positive effect on a lot of dogs with health issues. Not ALL dogs I know.

I'd always try a breed specific rescue as they tend to be the most helpful.

I appreciate that you came to ask for help and advice. However the list of Springer Rescues that MooseMama listed should have been your first port of call for advice and support. Chances are the dog would have been taken into foster and possibly remained on a forever foster place where the rescue pays for treatment ongoing if they feel the dog would be difficult/impossible to rehome. I've heard of dogs with a list of healthcare issues as long as your arm being successfully rehomed.

The dog's breeder should be named and shamed.

OK so if only SIL's dog had been fed BARF/RAW or chappie or whatever worked in the individual case of a dog somebody once knew, maybe he would have had shining perfect poos forever, lived to be 20 and won Crufts to boot.
Or maybe not. A lot of dogs with severe IBD (and the younger the dog at onset, the worse it often is- and this dog was young) have breakthrough flareups not matter what you feed or do. Of course you will always get people who say "oh I knew a dog with (IBD/atopy/epilepsy) and as soon as he went on (Hill's z/d ultra/RAW/Chappie) his (poos/skin/mental status) were perfect 4eva".
This sometimes happens. It makes a nice post on a forum. Saying "the majority of dogs with very severe IBD with an early onset have a constant struggle throughout their life, and some of the worst ones are better off euthanased" (not always due to cost - I'd consider it in a very stressy dog who hated staying at the vet) is a more accurate reflection of this population of dogs.
The OPs family did contact breed specific rescues on more than one occasion it seems.
As for those slating the RSPCA- their remit does seem to be mainly prosecutions for cruelty cases rather than pouring huge amounts of resources (money and time) into very high needs cases.

What a truly disgraceful thing to read. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You have ended a 1 year old animals life because you couldn't be arsed to find it a proper home. The poor thing had IBS, I'm not surprised it was stressed, clearly the people it lived with couldn't care less about it. I am truly shocked.

noddingoff yes some dogs are so ill that they would be better off euthanised but this particular dog was a year old ,had these people really tried everything when they had only had the dog for less than a year . Besides which it is the ear problem and not being able to afford the vet that this decision appears to be based on which is not a good reason to euthanise. I seriously can't believe how quickly some people 'give up' on what should be a member of their family .

errr nodding off, i don't actually notice anyone on this thread speaking like a complete chav, we're perfectly eloquent thanks very much. And the raw food diet is well known for helping IBS problems in dogs.

You neededn't treat us like a bunch of simpletons to try and prove your misguided point.

I was one of the ones who said that I knew someone whose dog had improved on a raw diet. I worded it as I did in order to get my point across - I wasn't saying a raw diet WOULD cure the dog, only that it MIGHT (and, by implication, that it must be worth a try). Sad to see that the vet immediately euthanised. My own vet reviews each PTS case ... he rescued a dog a couple of years ago because he didn't think it deserved to be killed. We helped him find a new home for the dog. There's a big difference between putting a dog to sleep to prevent further suffering and killing a dog because you can't be bothered. Some elements of this story don't quite make sense ... people could afford the insurance but not the pay-up-front bit. For a reasonably routine op (seed removal) I'd find it hard to believe that no-one in the family could stump up the cash. Whilst undoubtedly there's poverty in the UK, I'm surprised that such a 'cheap' operation wasn't chosen (different perhaps if it was an op costing thousands). One of my other suggestions was taking out an interest free credit card to fund such emergencies. On Facebook I've seen people begging for money to help pay for vet's bills. Agree or disagree with that, at least they tried. I'm particularly emotional at the moment as my own elderly dog has problems which I wish I could fix. It's not lack of money, time or desire in my case. I know they can't live forever. I just would love a few more years. I would love to go back to him being a one year old again, with all the years to look forward to.

Im sure raw won't help every dog, but perhaps worth a try before being PTS? Given how much anecdotal evidence there is for it. And lets face it the evidence for raw food will remain anecdotal as it's not in any large company's financial interests to show how good it is.

I would be interested to know how much this dog was exercised. Young springers need a lot to keep them in good mental and physical health.
Tbh I don't think your inlaws did enough to help the animal they were responsible for OP and I think the RSPCA are a disgrace.

I mentioned chappie, not sure where I said all the stuff

Shameful.

I wish I hadn't opened this thread.

Noddingoff you may be right- this dog may have had no 'cure' for his IBS. Raw may have been as bad as the rest of the diets for him. It would have been worth trying though. If it was my dog, and someone said 'look my neighbour tried this and it worked' i'd sure as hell try it if it was even slightly possible we could get to keep him in our family. If raw worked- you'd know pretty quickly- the same if it didnt.

I'm a bit about the advice from the vet about the dog having to get better on the 'special diet' before going onto raw. The special diet wasnt working so he wasnt going to get better in it. The whole point of trying raw was to fix that!

Sorry if I came off as being snotty. I think according to the history the expensive food was starting to help as the dog was putting on weight? If the dog had gut problems since it was a few months old then they maybe have already tried various different things.
I think raw probably was worth a go if it hadn't been tried yet (and the same could be said of steroids if they had not been tried) before euthanasia....but I have seen this problem sometimes. Not always this exact thing, but the same type of situation - where the owner wants to euthanase before every last option is exhausted - and often sparked by a different "small crisis" such as the grass seed - but really they are at their own breaking point. I try to be sympathetic. It's not me who has had a dog having diarrhoea everywhere for months. It's not me who has to worry about coming up with the insurance excess every year for the gut problem, plus any excess for any other problem like the ear, plus a percentage of the total when the dog is a bit older, plus the expensive food if raw dosn't work a well as the expensive ones, and metronidazole or budesonide or pred don't help enough.
Sometimes I will push hard not to euthanase - for example talking down the owners whose otherwise happy healthy older dog has just suffered a mild vestibular episode and convincing them that he hasn't just had a stroke and that he will almost certainly be much much better in a few days with minimal interference. If the owners have already been through the emotional mill and invested time and effort and money and vet visits- like these have- I push less hard to keep trying even if I privately think my own personal breaking point with that case would come later. I try not to condemn people even if they haven't been willing to go through absolutely every last option.
Sometimes plain old money brings the crunch point before the last options are tried; sometimes it's the magnitude of interference and thought of postop care stress on the animal (refusing exploratory surgery in a very old decrepit dog for example), and sometimes it's that the owners just mentally can't take any more. It's hard to push the last category of people into keeping on trying when you know that you might have to wait another month or two for a good result; and that flareups will still happen; and that, if they're poor as well, you're spending money they don't have on a case that might well end up getting euthanased anyway.

To be fair noddingoff, I feel a bit paranoid about this anyway as my dog was knocked down by a car and had a tail pull, broken in two places, she was incontinent from the accident and the vet would not operate until he knew I could cope with looking after her, what my home circumstances were like, and that I would accept it had less than half a chance of success. Is she could have had an operation, but she was eleven and had a good life with me for eleven years, had bern fit and healthy and do you know, I couldn't cope with her being . Miserable. And I chose to have her pts.
I question myself regular for choosing that rather than having an operation but the vet said 'I know you want to give her a chance, she is a lively dig, but you need to consider what us fair's for her I think I did choose fairly, it still feels shit though
If I had posted here and got this reaction I think I might have slit my wrists

I think anyone would have been sympathetic to you owllady & fwiw I think you made the right decision xx

Owllady I'd have made the same decision in your shoes. Your dog was elderly, the chances of success not brilliant and you didn't want her to suffer any more. A loving and responsible decision imo.

Really sorry to hear about your dog Owllady. I hate tailpull injuries, they are often such a heartbreaker...as you found out you have to decide whether to put the poor animal through major surgery and subject it to two weeks of bladder expression at least four times daily and postop care- usually as an inpatient so spending many nights away from home and family- waiting to see if enough bladder function will return for a decent life. The ones that look pretty bad on Xray and with little or no sensation round their back end - or the ones that would take hospitalisation harder - we do often euthanase sooner after discussing with the owner as it's horrible looking back after 2 weeks of futility and wishing that the pet hadn't spent its last days or weeks languishing in a cage at the vets. It's a horrible situation to be in, I really think I would have made the same decision in your shoes.

upsetting thread.wish I hadn't opened it.

Owllady, how sad. i am so sorry.

Heartbreaking thread! Some people do not deserve pets!!!

Owl lady your story is completely different circumstances, you had an elderly dog. Please don't feel bad at all.

This thread is sad.

For me, the saddest part about this is that it seems rescues weren't really given a chance to rehome this dog. Most rescues, especially breed rescues are run by volunteers, have few or no paid staff and even though they are willing to help, it is sometimes physically impossible to rustle up a foster home with a space for a dog with an expensive health problem at the drop of a hat. Pretty much every rescue is familiar with the horrible gun to the head of relinquishing owners - it's completely normal sadly for them to say that "if the dog isn't gone by tomorrow/the weekend, it's being PTS (or worse). " Rescues then have the thankless job of having to prioritise which of these blackmailers to deal with first, while also doing our best to facilitate the genuine (and often heartbreaking) pleas for help, both permanent and temporary.

There are also a huge number of vets out there who do their absolute best to quietly ensure dogs brought for spurious PTS are moved on to rescue places, often in different parts of the country. However, neither vets nor rescues can work miracles - we are not supplied with magic wands.

And again, most breed rescues don't give up on the dogs with chronic health conditions, who are old, who need meds. We have a foster here with us at the moment (he's here for life) who has every penny of his (substantial) vets bills and food paid for by a tiny charity, run by less than a handful of well meaning, mostly elderly volunteers in West Wales. The RSPCA with its millions in the bank, its army of paid staff, and high profile bottomless legal budget that is spent on vanity prosecutions against political targets - in 2012, it killed 44% of the animals it took in, 53,000 of them, mostly completely healthy. I won't even get started on the disgusting euthanasia methods they use.

If this thread can achieve anything - I'd say that please don't ever surrender your dog to the RSPCA (it's a death sentence) and please do talk to a rescue about helping - they will bend over backwards to help dogs but be patient as most are voluntary, and run on a shoestring.