Last evening our 11 year old King Charles Cavalier passed after battling congestive heart failure for a little over a year. He responded well to meds etc over the past year and was fairly stable with a few ups and downs until about a month ago when he developed a second valve leak (on the right side, the tri cuspid) and hypertension in the lungs. The fluid from the right side leak backed up into his abdomen. It took a few weeks while we were unaware of the new developments but he ended up in the ER and 1100-1200 ml of fluid were drained. Unfortunately the symptoms were similar to both arthritis, which he had in his back legs, and his existing left side valve leak, so we were unaware of the new problem. The draining and spending the night etc was really stressful and hard on him, and after he recovered and was on a new course of meds we decided no more extraordinary efforts (our focus had been on maintaining comfort all along). The drainage actually gave us a week of a somewhat renewed dog-not back to the old days of course but he acted more like our pup of old. We knew it wouldn’t last, the last 2-3 days he deteriorated. Luckily my husband was at his side when he passed and it was very peaceful. He was a much loved member of the family and gave us so much in return, and we are devastated, but also so relieved that he is no longer suffering. We will miss him terribly, our house is too quiet and we feel a void.
