Restlessness and Weight Loss

For a long while now, Peluche has become restless, mostly in the evening. He will pace back and forth for hours. It's so hard to get him to settle. He's also loosing weight. I can feel all of his ribs and spine very easily and I can visually see a huge difference in how thin his waist is. Last time he had blood work it showed that his kidneys were not too good. I know it's only a matter of time before he goes into complete renal failure. His urination is also very excessive. He always had very frequent urination but now it's to the point where he will have accidents in the house about 3 times in the span of 1.5 hours. While i'm trying to get ready in the morning, it's almost impossible for me to keep up. His water intake is also astounding. It's like he's dying of thirst all the time.

I don't know what to do. Not sure if I should say good bye or wait until his body is completely shut down. Seeing a dog in complete kidney failure is so sad.

I am so sorry to hear that. It is one of the hardest things to face. I would get suggestions from afew vets to help your decision. See if there is anything you could do like fluid therapy?

Two possibilities occur to me.

Either his kidney failure is now so bad that he is unable to filter the fluid intake at all and is passing everything as very dilute urine. Or he might have diabetes.

Either way I would collect a urine specimen in a small clean bottle and take it with you to the vet for a proper diagnosis.

Good luck.

Oh bless him, such a hard place to be for you I know Restlessness is often a sign of pain.

Only you know when the right time is, as others have said seek advice from your vet, a good one will give you all options available so you can make an informed choice of how to move forward.

The hardest part is stepping back and making choices that your own emotions and needs aren't involved in, that's part of our responsibility to our friends.

Sending you both hugs xx

I've not dealt with a dog in renal failure but it's a fairly common illness in older cats and rabbits.
They do tend to lose weight and drink/ pee a lot towards the end, apparently the kidneys will have lost 60% of their function before it shows up in the blood work.
Phosphates are the things to avoid in diets, I don't know if you have him on a special renal diet, but it makes the biggest difference in longevity to cats in renal failure.
Again I don't know about dogs but vitamin B12 injections and anabolic steroids can be helpful if their appetite has dropped.
Is your dog dehydrated, once they start to suffer from dehydration they will feel very poorly, and dripping can help, in some cases it can give them another good few months on others only a week or so, it all depends on the animal.
If you think he is in pain, I would avoid Metacam especially as it is very hard on the kidneys, and possibly try something like tramadol instead.
This is based on my experience with cats, but I can't see that dogs will be massively different.
Good luck, it's hard to decide when is the best time, but I tend to go on their demeanour and if the are still enthusiastic about food and cuddles.

That's what I am afraid of. I don't want him to be in pain and it's hard to treat pain when the kidneys are not working. It may lead to toxicity or something, i'm not too sure.

It's just that he is so old, what would treating him do really? He's going on to 17, I don't think he would recover from this. If he were still young, that is a whole different story. That is another dilemma i'm facing. Due to his age, do I let him go naturally, let him go peacefully now, or try to treat/maintain? I'm conflicted.

The vet knows about his health. He says there isn't all that much you can do at this point.

As the saying goes better a day too early than a day too late. Only my opinion but he is being stoical and is in pain ( weight loss / pacing). A hard decision but I'd let him go as the proud animal he is obviously is xxx