On Friday we said our last goodnight to my boy Cizzy the day after his 6th birthday 😢
He was such an energetic, loving, cuddly boy but his last 5 weeks were filled with pain, sadness and not being himself.
In October 2023, Cizzy was first diagnosed with IVDD. Grade 4, he had surgery and made a great recovery, got about 90% of his back leg function back, recovery was hard, he always hated being in the crate he just wanted to be with us.
We had 2.5 great years, lots of walks, chasing tennis balls being the happy off lead sniffing sausage he was. In April 2026 another disc went. The vet said it looks like it went a while ago because there was a lot of calcification and the surgery was long and hard. They had to really dig at the calcification to get his spine straight again. Recovery was harder, he didn’t walk straight away this time and I picked up and extremely wobbly sausage but we went through recovery and he was at about 70% with his back legs.
Only 6 months later, pretty much on the 3rd anniversary of his first surgery, I noticed he wasn’t being himself. A bit wobbly, isolating himself from us (usual Velcro dog behaviour was not there) and was yelping. Another disc gone, every one has been lumbar. We had always said, no more surgeries after the second, it was so hard on him and he was never fully himself again. We tried conservative management, we tried so damn hard. Got all the meds, made sure he was properly crate rested from the moment we thought it might even be his back. He crate rested for 5 weeks. Every time we tapered off the steroids he would relapse. He couldn’t even cope with one steroid and 2 lots of pain killers per day. We had to give him anti anxiety any time we needed to be upstairs to do something to prepare for baby 2. The anticipatory grief I felt over the last 2 weeks of his life was all consuming.
Then his review day came on Friday, we knew. He knew. He looked at me that morning as if to say, “mummy, I’m done now, you can let me go”. The vet agreed that he was truly miserable and keeping him around would only be beneficial for us. He had soiled and wet his crate the night before, that wasn’t like him. He never had accidents in the house.
On Friday, at 11:20am, my boy went to sleep. I cuddled him, told him how much I loved him, apologised that there was nothing more we could do and that we had tried our very very best to get him better. It wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough.
He was my first baby. He was my first human baby’s brother and I’m unbelievably sad my next baby isn’t going to get to meet her brother.
RIP sweet boy. You were my world but there is no pain, only freedom where you are now. Run, jump, roll, bark your head off until I see you again in a place where IVDD doesn’t exist. Say hi to all my friends and family up there too, they will look after you until one day, we are reunited 💙