Jake, Out of Options

The Doctor just called. Jake is the same. She said that most activity she's seen from him was right after we left yesterday. He was barking and had a personality. Still has not eaten. Not even the turkey we left for him. The two options now are to open him up to search for cancer not seen on an ultrasound. I'm not doing that to him. The other option is to insert a feeding tube, which she said is usually a temporary thing. So that is not an option for us either.

I told her that she was going to have to walk us through this because we've never done this before. Ideally, I would like to bring him home for one last night with us, but I don't want to risk having to drive him to the EC in the middle of the night. If he has to go, I want him to go there at the hospital or at Lakeline, not the EC. She said that we would talk about it in the morning.

I asked her about vaccinations and she said he would have reacted three weeks or so right after the shot, so she thinks not, but she said she hasn't given shots to her dogs in quite some time except for Rabies. When I look back at Jake's life, he has licked his paws forever, which makes me think he's had allergies for quite some time. Perhaps he just had a weak immune system all along, and that last shot just tipped the scales a little bit to cause this decline. Maybe he has cancer. I guess at this point it doesn't matter. He doesn't deserve to go on like this, alone in a cage hooked up to a machine among strangers.

I think Shane misses Jake. Even though Jake never wanted to play with him, Shane tried and now there is no one to tease. He is quiet and snuggles with me more than he used to. We all miss Jake.