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My dog died suddenly

I had just taken my dog to the vet a month earlier for a regular checkup, teeth cleaning (for which she was anethetised) and the removal of a small cyst (the vet said it was kind of like and ingrown hair).
She seemed fine - eating a little less than normal, but we chalked that up to the heat.
I took her out for a walk early in the morning and she was walking so slow (very much not the normal for her).
I kept trying to get her to speed up, but I stopped for a minute, kneeled down and noticed that the hair on her back and the back of her neck was standing up as though she sensed danger.  I scratched her back really good, talked to her, hugged her and tried to calm her down.  I stook back up and decided to turn around and take her back home.
We were only about a block from home, so we hadn't walked that far.  We got about two houses away from ours and she just laid down in the road.  I tried to pick her up, but she was too heavy and just dead weight, her breathing was really fast and she had peed on the road.  My husband came and got us and we lifted her into the car with a sheet.
We took her home, and took her in the back to try and calm her down (still thinking, maybe she just fainted or something).  She seemed to kind of come back to us, and she finally started walking a little, but her breathing was still really fast and I just knew that this was the end but just kept trying to think maybe it wasn't.  I went inside to get dressed to take her to the emergency vet and when I came back out, she had just laid down and died.  Blood was all around her nose and mouth.  I don't understand what could have happened?  She had been coughing a little bit after the surgery, but I called the vet and they said that dogs normally cough after surgery because of the procedure and just to call if it got worse, and it didn't.  She showed no other signs leading up to this.  It was completely a shock.  
Can you help me to understand why she died?
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Avatar universal
Thank you so much for your reply.  I know it wasn't a toxin of any kind as she had a fenced-in pen or we were always around her.  I just thought that six years of age was pretty young for her to just die so quickly.
Thank you again for your reply.  Having an indication of what might have happened won't bring her back to us, but it takes some of the guilty feeling away.  I just kept trying to think what I must've missed.  
Helpful - 0
234713 tn?1283526659
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I am terribly sorry for your loss!

I will try to help you if I can, but with out a necropsy (an animal autopsy),  with toxicology analysis, blood analysis and other diagnostic procedures we will never have a definitive answer.

She may have had a tumor in her heart or lungs, (and possibly in the abdomen) that went undiagnosed.  There are forms of heart and lung disease that can go undetected because there is no heart murmur, and no unusual sounds when the chest is ausculted, and no abnormalities are visible on X-Rays.  Some of these diseases can only be discovered with an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound).  Did your vet do preanesthetic chest X-Rays, or blood work?  Even if your vet had, the X-Rays could have been normal a month ago.  If part of the tumor burst it could have caused coughing and exercise intolerance (inability to walk) and eventually the blood would ascend the trachea and appear at the nostrils and mouth.  If there was a tumor in the abdomen it could have burst inside.  Hemangiosarcoma is a kind of cancer that can exhibits this behavior, i,e:  filling up with blood and than bursting.  The dog can die acutely when the tumor bursts since the blood is no longer in blood vessels and severe hemorrhage occurs.

Other possible causes are toxin ingestion, and end stage failure of any organ system.

Helpful - 0
212161 tn?1599427282
am so sorry for your loss, was she a older dog? did you call your vet and talk to them about it? i really have no answers but it sounds like her heart, with the breathing i know thats how mine was breathing when he was very ill with his heart. please know ya did a great job with her and gave her lots love.
Helpful - 0

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