dachie death

Question
QUESTION: Dr. Chambreau, I like your holistic approach and found your answers to others interesting and informative.  Please help me understand probable causes of death for my 12.5 yr. old F spayed standard red dachshund.  Lucy was 22 lbs, eating Hill's R/D since Oct., tolerating it well, resulting in a 5 lb.weight loss.  She was s/p stroke in 2008, responded well to exercise and now had no obvious residual effects.  She had glaucoma in her L eye and was to start treatment on Jan. 3.  She died at 9:25 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2012.  She had long-term multiple black spots on her abdomen which dramatically increased prior to death.
She often had an itchy abdomen which responded to belly baths.  The frequency of the itchiness increased during the month prior to her death.  Nine days prior to death she developed full ventral redness with itchiness that also developed between her digits.  It was the weekend so I bathed her and tried topicals with no effect.  She'd fall asleep as I'd gently rub her chest and abdomen. Monday I took her to the vet who dx contact dermatitis.  Nothing in her food or environment had changed. He Rx topicals containing hydrocortisone which quickly cleared up the rash and itching.  Lucy acted like her normal self except for some increased lethargy, decreased water intake and decreased output.  Friday Cindy Australian Shepherd clipped her as she was running out the door.  Lucy didn't yelp or try to bite Cindy.  Usually she jumps and growls at Cindy whenever they are going in or out of the house.  Shortly after I saw Lucy walking and holding her right paw up.  She was abducting the leg which made me think of a dislocation. The vet found no fx or dislocation on xray.  Since she was still sedated from the xray I asked him to remove two skin tags on her left outer thigh because she had been chewing and chewing on them.  Normally they didn't bother her and she'd had them for years. He gave IM general anesthesia and removed the tags.  The larger one was down to muscle and he excised a nickle-sized area.  He Rx topical liquid antibiotic b.i.d.  She had periods of apnea during her recovery which stopped after he reversed the anesthesia.  Later that evening she was walking around with her paw held up in front of her, eating and acting normally. The next day, Saturday, she was more lethargic than usual but would still go outside.  Her feistiness was gone.  Sunday she walked with her tail tucked between her legs, something she never did before.  She knew no fear!  She'd sleep but not in her usual spots or positions.  She wet her bed.  She had long-term urge incontinence but responded well to her voiding schedule. She was dx with a pulmonary valve murmur in October.  Sunday evening she was asleep, gave a quick, loud yelp but didn't get up.  I picked her up and held her on my lap with her chest and abdomen upright.  She looked at me, her back arched, she took three long, difficult, breaths, her neck went limp, she paddled with her hind legs, defecated and voided.  It was over quickly.  What do you think may have been probable causes of death? R/O Cor pulmonale, stroke, heart??  She showed no s/s of CHF.  I appreciate your time and your sharing your expertise with us.  You are a good person.

ANSWER: I am so sorry she had a lot of illnesses and then had a bit of trouble dying, though blessedly it was quick. We each need to find a way to leave our physical bodies. The more homeopathy and holistic approaches used, the easier it usually (not always) is to die. The actual death symptoms are very common regardless of the actual cause of death. Sort of like elderly people mostly die of pneumonia, even if really it was the diabetes or other illness that just culminated in the pneumonia. The yelp/back arched/ difficult breaths, paddling and voiding are very common symptoms that many animals go through. They do not indicate the cause of death.

You did the very best you could for her, following the conventional approaches. There are many more things you could learn to do that may (not for sure) help your next dogs or cats have fewer problems in general. Getting Don Hamilton's book - Homeopathic care of cats and dogs - and reading Chapters 2 and 3 will help you understand how some of the choices you made might possibly have weakened her a bit and given her vibrational pattern a little too much work. I hesitated to even say that because I do not want you to feel any guilt. You were so clear and complete and requested to know what happened that I felt obliged to tell you my perspective.

If you want more about this, call me.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, Doctor Chambreau, for your compassion, help, and quick response.  I understand now how the cumulative effects of her week of imbalance may have added more stress to her little body than she could handle at this time, leaving her unable to ward off the physical cause of her death.  Having the skin tags removed was a well-intentioned but bad choice.  I believe she had already started the dying process earlier in the week when she developed the ventral redness and slight temp elevation and I missed it.  I also know now that in her weakened state she had the rainbow bridge in sight.  I probably hastened her journey with my choices but didn't cause her death.  I believe it was her time.  I attended an all day lecture and workshop on therapeutic touch and another lecture on hypnotherapy some years ago.  I believe totally in the holistic approach.  I believe body, mind, and spirit must be in balance for us to achieve homeostasis.

We have a 12-year old mixed breed medium-sized dog who developed grand mal seizures last October.  We were told when we got him at 12 weeks of age from a cage outside a feed store that he was 1/2 German Shepherd, 1/4 dobbie and 1/4 rottie.  He takes phenobarb gr. 1 1/5 tabs bid, two in the am. and 1.5 tabs in the p.m.  He has no hx of epilepsy.  His starter dose was 1 tab bid.  As he had breakthrough seizures we increased his dose gradually.  When he reaches 7 gr. the vet plans to add another medication.  His seizures so far are not close enough to be called clustering, but when he first started seizing they were full blown and frequent.  He had three in less than 24 hours.  That's when the vet started him on pb.  I know tumors can cause seizures and cannot r/o malignancy.  We want his quality of life to be as good as it can under his circumstances.  What do you suggest we do holistically?  We live in rural Mississippi.  Thank you for your time, patience, and willingness to share your expertise with others to help God's creatures have the best life possible.

Answer
I am glad that you are clear and grounded about the transition out of this body. Good for you.

For your other dog, my suggestions are to follow the 7 key steps - feed a raw food diet with good local meat and vegetables, do not vaccinate, and begin to work with a phone consulting homeopathic veterinarian (many are very successful in treating seizures and lowering the dose of drugs, do not use flea chemical, avoid chemicals in the house, etc. Therapeutic touch, by itself, could help the tendency to seizure a lot. Rescue Remedy can completely stop a seizure in some dogs. Since they have been present for so long I doubt it is from a tumor. The ones from tumors progress very rapidly - in a year or less, in my experience.

Definitely go to www.theAVH.org to find a homeopathic phone vet and go to the other web sites I've listed before to see, if, by wonderful chance, you have a great holistic vet near you.

Call me if you have general questions.