I’m reposting, I put in wrong section of this site.
I’ve had my boy since he was 8 weeks old. It’s only him and I, nobody else. He’s my love, the love of my life and everything in between. I’ve struggled with depression and honestly he’s whats kept me alive at times. My boy, Jackson is an English Bulldog. He turned 9 at the end of August. I’ve seen him slowly aging which has been incredibly hard. He’s my first dog. I have not witnessed this kind of aging or had to deal with the loss of anyone close to me and the thought of losing him has been on my mind a lot knowing he’s within his life expectancy bracket. He has been very healthy except for his skin issue. Nothing else has been a problem. He’s also intact, I had planned on breeding him… that just never happened.

This past Saturday he woke me up around 3am, pacing around, seemed as though he needed to go out for a potty. A little stiff and sluggish, eye’s squinting not fully open he spent time outside and came back in. His breathing was heavy and didn’t seem to subside before I fell back asleep. When I woke he was in his bed, sleeping as normal. He began to get up and fell to the side, he yelped and cried, squinted his eyes and just laid there. I immediately got dressed, started the truck and carried him out. Drove to the ER hospital and got the diagnosis that Xrays showed his heart,liver and prostate is enlarged. He has a heart arrhythmia. The vet goes into everything that can be done. Blood tests, ultrasounds, echocardiogram, on and on. It all seemed so overwhelming. My mom arrived and the vet went back over everything she just told me. We sat, they asked if we wanted Jackson to come be with us. He walked in, breathing heavy, seemed to be uncomfortable.. not really able to sit or lay down. My brother arrived and we told him what was going on. Somehow my mom and I both heard the vet say they would need to scope his heart, this sounded horrible. After 20 mins or so I was going home to be with him a few days then put him down.

He came home, his labored breathing stopped and we took a nap. Later he started breathing heavy again, fell over again which was scary because there’s nothing I could do. I immediately decided to call my mom and to start the process of having a service come out. At around 7pm he was put to sleep.

After going over this again and again in a more clear state I don’t understand how this result happened. I’ve had health insurance on him since he was 8 weeks old, I have spent plenty of money on treating anything and everything that has come up. Why weren’t more questions asked, what did the heart scope entail, could his prostate and liver be enlarged due to lack of oxygen from his labored breathing???? Everything I read has told me his arrhythmia could have been treated. I DID NOTHING!!! I took the best thing that has ever happened to me away. No one helped me, no one told me to wait and observe. That it will be scary but that putting him down is final. I mean I knew it was but my mom and brother both just only saw that putting him down would inevitably happen. I could’ve had more time with him if only I had waited, got educated and made decisions based on that information verses my sadness for this new stage of aging. He was fine. The prior weeks his appetite was great, his energy was good, he played with his toys, we went outside on little strolls. Why why why did I do this? I have to live this and that I took him away before knowing anything. I did no tests, I did nothing.