We were playing in the backyard, Scout, C and I, when C was the first to notice that Scout’s nose was bleeding, not a lot, just a trickle.
At first, I thought it might be a bad allergic reaction, but it didn’t stop. Maybe there’s something stuck up his nose? He does sniff everything and everywhere. We looked and looked but didn’t see anything, maybe it was lodged deep in the nose and we could not see it?
Ms J took him to our vet the next day. The staff at the vet’s office first also thought that it must be something lodged in the nose, a porcupine quill ? They used a specialized device to check his nose and didn’t see anything up there, but they did see that his blood was not clotting.
This is somewhat unusual for a 10 month old dog, but it is a symptom of having ingested rat poison. We didn’t see him eat anything that might have been killed by poison, such as a dead squirrel or mouse. The antidote for a dog who has eaten rat poison is a massive dose of vitamin K, which helps to clot the blood. This didn’t work. Besides he would have had to eaten ten pounds of poison to cause this lack of clotting, but at least that could be ruled out.
Perhaps he had a genetic disorder, such as hemophilia? A treatment of Prednisone would help with that. If it worked it would indicate that he was a hemophiliac, which is manageable with a variety of drugs, but that didn’t work either.
A tick bite ? Some ticks can cause this type of symptom. A blood test did not indicate a tick borne illness. A treatment of antibiotics was tried anyway just to be sure, but it didn’t help.
So they tried an ultrasound. That’s when they saw the tumor that is eating away his spleen. He just cant clean the blood and make the platelets to help clot normally. There’s not much to do to stop it.
One of the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is tell our eight year old son that his dog was going to die soon. We won’t be able to take him to the beach and see him jump in the waves this Summer. We won’t be able to ride bikes with him running along beside us wondering what those strange wheeled things were. I had thought that C and Scout would grow up together, but that’s not going to happen.
So we took him home.
For the next few days he’ll eat his favorite foods.
He’ll sit in the sun in the backyard. He’ll sleep on our bed if he wants to. He can sit in his favorite spot in the garden.
Maybe we’ll play tug-of-war with his blanket.
I’ll scratch his ear as long as he wants me to. 
And then we’ll have to say goodbye.
He’s been the smartest, happiest, most good natured dog. He loves meeting new people and he especially loves kids. He loves going to pick up C from school, seeing all the kids run around, getting a lot of attention from the kids who wanted to pet him. He loves meeting other dogs too, hoping they will want to play with him. He just wanted to be friends with everyone. The best dog I’ve ever had. And he’s only 10 months old.
Mr. C's Dad 
So sorry to hear this – poor Scout and poor Mr. C. x
Thank you! It’s still hard to believe. We did our best and gave him a good life.
So sad. Hope you’ll make another dog your friend.
So sorry for your loss. It is always the hardest thing.
I’m so sad to read this. It is the hardest thing to have to lose such a lovely young dog. My heart goes out to all your family. And though Scout’s life may be short, he at least knew the joys of belonging to your pack and unconditional love.
This is exactly what I told C. I work from home, so Scout was rarely alone, which was great for such a social dog. We did a lot of fun things during the tine we had him, some dogs don’t have that at all. Thanks for your comment.
It is all you can do – make the time that they have with you as great as possible, which you did.
I adopt older rescue dogs who have had a rough start in life. At least Scout never suffered like they do.
Still, there will be a giant hole in your hearts right now and though it will heal in time, there will always be a part that belongs to dear Scout.
That’s great that you adopt older dogs! We got him when he was about 11 weeks old. The shelter staff seemed happy that he was being adopted since that’s fairly old. Just a few more weeks and he would look like a full grown dog and they would have a hard time getting him adopted. I think a lot of people don’t consider that the cute little puppy stage doesn’t last long.
When we visited the shelter, his enclosure was next to that of an older Basset Hound. He seemed so happy that we were there so we visited with him for awhile. Unfortunately he was too ill to be considered for adoption. He had spent his whole life in the shelter, just got too old to compete with the cute energetic puppies, so no one picked him. If I worked in a shelter I’d probably have a house full of dogs!
Any dog that we can adopt changes the world for that one dog, and makes a space in the rescue centre for another street dog to be taken care of. Black dogs are often just not adopted, for some reason. Scout was lucky to know the safety and comfort of your home.
And I’d also have a house full of rescue dogs, if I could.
So sorry. That’s really hard.
Thank you! Dogs will break your heart, just didn’t think it would happen so soon.
Saddened… Such a sweet dog.
Hope Mr C is okay.
Thank you! I think I’m going to suggest that he write down his favorite stories about him.
Peter, came here directly after reading your kind words over at my place. I have just read out your post to Jeannie and she replied, through tears: “Oh, that’s terrible. Just makes me feel so lucky that we had Pharaoh for so long!”
Please know that we are grieving with you all.
Thank you. I’ve found that it helps to write about it, but it also helps to read about how others experienced the same thing. So I appreciated your post a great deal and look forward to reading more of your blog.
I am heartbroken for your family. I am heartbroken for your sweet dog.
Thank you. I should have added in the post that it helps to know that it wasn’t something we did. He didn’t find some poison somewhere outside, or something left in the basement by a former owner of the house. Or we didn’t check for tics. It was beyond our control and we did everything we could.
So sorry to hear about your Scout. Such a crummy life lesson.
Thank you. He had been looking forward to having a dog for so long. It’ll be a tough Summer.
So sorry to hear this.
So sad. My heart has broken over every pet I have lost over the years.
Thank you, and so young too.
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Heartbreaking. ❤ I'm so sorry.
Thank you! We had him for two more days after that post. At least it wasn’t something we could have controlled like some kind of poison or if we had missed a tic.