10/21/2023
Now that I’ve had some time to process and things are a little less fresh. I felt it was time to share the sad news that we recently made the difficult decision to have Lance humanely euthanized 💔.
Lance was an absolute sweetheart who was incredibly smart, willing and always a joy to be around. His gentle nature showed in every interaction with people, including my young cousin who often spent time with him (he loved her, and would eagerly greet her anytime she came to visit ❤️). My heart hurts for him, and for all those who will miss him. I especially feel for Petrie, who agreed to take him on and gentle him in the first place, and put a great deal of time into working with him and handling his health struggles. He deserved so much better and I wish we could have done more for him, but at least he is free from pain now. I know we will all miss him dearly 😞.
- Some Backstory on Lance -
Lance had been struggling with health issues (he was diagnosed with Cauda Equina Syndrome), since we got him in July of 2021. As I said before, he was a sweetheart and I’m heartbroken that he suffered and endured so much in his short life (just 8yrs old according to BLM papers).
We tried with him for a long time, and went back and forth many times on if it was time to call it or not. We knew he would almost certainly have a shortened life span between the injury and the medications to manage it, but we’d hoped to keep him comfortable and happy for longer.
He would go through rough patches where he was regularly having episodes of struggling greatly to urinate, clearly in pain/discomfort and requiring banamine. There were many nights where I had to go out in the dark and get a dose into him and proceed to do regular checks throughout the night. We’d think it was time to make the call, and then he’d turn a corner and seem to be doing really well for a stretch.
Earlier this year it appeared that he was improving. He’d put on quite a bit of weight, seemed bright, was rarely having episodes and could move his tail more. Then he took a dive. He started to lose weight again, have episodes regularly, didn’t show much interest in eating or anything and appeared painful/uncomfortable more often than not. We wonder if as he regained some nerve function and could feel more, he was in more pain. It was apparent that he didn’t have the will to go on and the quality of life was poor with little to no chance of improving. With that, we made the decision that the best thing we could for him was to put him to rest 💔.
