Andy

This past week has been a hard one on us all.  Andy has been not wanting to eat his food for a while now.  Sometimes he would half of his food, sometimes none at all.  On Wednesday, I came home from work as usual, let the dogs out, filled up their bowls with food and water, and let them back in to eat.  Sadie gobbled hers down in no time, but Andy would just drink water, look at his food, look back up at me, and then go lay down.  He just had this sad look in his eyes, so I immediately called Jason and told him we needed to take him to the vet.  Jason left work, came home to get Andy, and took him in.  They didn't run any tests that night, just took a look at him and took his weight.  He had lost 15-20 lbs in 2 weeks, which was hard for us to see because his fur is so thick.  The vet thought at that time that it could be kidney failure, cancer, etc.  They just didn't know without running any tests.  So, Jason took him in Thursday morning at 8am, they drew blood and told him they'd have results within 24-36 hours.  Yesterday the vet's office called Jason and said that the majority of his tests came back normal, except for his liver.  I guess the numbers were off the charts, higher than any they've ever seen.  They've ruled it out to be one of two things:  either a cancerous tumor on his liver or a disease called Leptospirosis.  To make sure if it's cancer or not, we could choose to have an ultrasound done, but we've decided against that and are treating him for the Leptospirosis. Here is the link if you want to read up on it more:  http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/canine-leptospirosis.  Andy is on antibiotics for it and pain killers.  He's eating now and our goal is to just make him comfortable and put weight back on.  We don't know how much time he has, but we're definitely spoiling him and making him a happy boy.  And of course, we're not forgetting about Sadie, she's just not getting as many treats.  :)  Please say a prayer for our big boy, as this will be hard on all of us, especially Jason.  He's been his boy since his college days where he was his fraternities house dog.  He's made all the moves with Jason and been through so much with him.  He's a wonderful dog and although we knew this day would come as he's getting older, it's still a hard thing to deal with.  We love our Andy boy so much and just hope that he isn't feeling any pain.  For now, we're enjoying him and loving on him every minute.  We love you, Andy!