I am very grateful to everybody who has posted in this thread and all the lovely pictures, so I thought I should add some pics and a bit of context to the behind this thread
So 4 weeks ago about, Tilly started drinking loads and loads of water one afternoon, so much she was then regurgitating it and drinking more. We took her to the vet who looked gave the usual probiotics and anti sickness injection, she ok but not improving much so we took her back and the vet said they could do some blood tests they came back clear but the vet said she could feel a swelling in her abdomen, so we agreed to an ultrasound, 3 hours later we had the phone call that the ultrasound images showed a large mass in the spleen, high chance of malignancy, we agreed to a biospy which came back inclonclusive.
The vet at the time offered to remove the spleen saying that would be the only guaranteed way to diagnose........but if it was malignant it would give her a few weeks more life but at the cost of suffering from an operation.
So we chose to have a steroid injection basically palliative care to reduce the inflammation and see how she was. It was scary because googling it showed there was a high chance of rupture leading to rapid decline........so we were getting up in the night to check on here
Anyway, after a few days Tilly improved, she stopped being sick, her appetite improved and she went back to being on her normal walks and seemed happy without any symptoms really
After 3 weeks had passed Tilly was still really well, so we werent sure if it was just the steroid or could it be something not malignant, so took her back to the vet, who did a ultrasound while we were there it was clear the mass had grown so we decided to have an operation to remove the spleen knowing the chance it was malignant was high.
Anyhow 3 hours later we got the phone call that the vet had opened her up and she didnt have a splenic growth, it was outside the spleen and it was attached to the duodenum and pancreas, so we had to agree to her not come out of the operation but to be put to sleep. The hard thing at the time was we took Tilly for a walk early that morning, she trotted round happily then we took her off to the vets, we expected to get her back probably with just a few months to live, so when we left her at the vets we hadnt made our goodbyes at all...........but it was the last we would see her.
Painful as that was, the decision was taken from us, we didnt have to make that journey to the vets knowing we were taking her to be put to sleep..........I can only imagine how painful that would be and I can tell from the comments made on here just how painful that can be.
Anyway here are a few pics of Tilly, I am tempted to say guess the breed but I dont think anybody would ever guess in a million years. She looks like a terrier but actually the breed is a Hound group
Tilly was a pedigree kennel club registered breed, a Portugese Podengo Pequeno, the breed is very rare in the UK...we went to Oxfordshire to the the main breeder who brought in some 40 dogs as breeding stock.
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Your Tilly looks so like our Heinz 57, Mac.
Brought a tear to my eye.
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