GAD with degenerative myelopathy

[Kilkerran]

Our GSD is 10 and has DM .

Up until the last few days it was affecting only one rear leg but now the other is starting to go. I know that soon we need to see him safely to the bridge but it's breaking my heart.

His personality is the same as ever. He is eating and drinking normally and begging for a chew whenever he can and that's what is making this so hard. He is still determined to come upstairs to bed every night but now DH has to help him and then help him down again in the morning. He can manage into the garden to toilet still but I realise that too will eventually stop.

My poor boy will leave us soon and leave a massive hole in our lives. I know this is the last, loving thing we can do for him but it's just so awful to think about.

I'm so sorry. Our first golden retriever developed CDRM/DM at age ten, it's a bastard of a disease. Our boy did well on steroids and anti inflammatory drugs for another couple of years but the vet warned us that the drugs would eventually destroy his organs. Sure enough he very suddenly went into heart failure and we had to make the awful decision to pts. I will say though that right up to that point he was eating, drinking, pottering about and seemed perfectly happy even though he didn't know where his back legs were half the time (he'd lost his positional sense) so you might well find he's ok for a bit yet. Is he on medication? And for you OP, it's heartbreaking.

A adopted a rescue GSD (vet phoned the rescue when she was taken in for PTS) when she was 11.5 and within months she was diagnosed with CDRM. She was already on steroids for itchy skin. I took her to the vet monthly and we agreed that the steroids were probably masking other hip issues and we weren't going to treat her with anything new.

We kept going until the time came that she looked in pain when she struggled to get up from her bed to greet me when I came home. I didn't want her to have pain when she did the things she loved doing. I put her sleep after having her for 14months. We sat in the Vet's waiting room and I fed her cheese cubes and chocolate buttons and she fell asleep very, very peacefully. It was heartbreaking for me, but a fabulous ending for a girl who had found herself homeless late in her life.

Hugs Kilkerran

We lost our dog to this just over 18 months ago. He had it for around three years before he died. Yours might potter on for a while yet. Take each day/week as it comes, and I hope you have many more with him.