NEW CUMBERLAND, Pa. – Oscar is a 17 year old dachschund who was adopted from a shelter four years ago. He is now 119 years old, in dog years, and he is sick. His owner has made the difficult decision to put him down on Monday. Before she does, she is completing a bucket list for him. It includes eating at a restaurant, being pictured with draft horses and more. He was even a special guest at New Cumberland Community Day. You can follow his list here.
On the page his owner explains the health problems he has had. It says, ” So I wanted to share a little bit more about Oscar’s health problems. Obviously as you know he has the cognitive dysfunction disorder which is similar to dementia. But the list of other things that Oscar has that we have noticed starting to take a toll on him would be severe arthritis, ivdd or intervertebral disc disease which is common for the breed, he has severe hypertension that he’s on the maximum doses of medication for that, cataracts as you could see in both eyes due to the hypertension, mast cell tumors which are malignant and we do believe that that has begun to spread as his abdomen has gotten larger than normal even before all the extra food. Oscar’s also hypothyroid in addition to his never-ending list above. He’s been on medications for everything listed for 3 years which is a whopping 13 pills twice a day. We have done various work ups, an ultrasound on him to try to figure out the source of some of these problems but to no avail. Oscar also only has 5 teeth remaining due to his previous owners never providing any Dental Care. He also has an oral nasal fistula which is a hole in his gums that is connected to the roof of his mouth similar to a cleft palate. I’ve had this repaired 3 times but unfortunately it did not hold. There are just some fun facts for you about Oscars never ending medical problems and we wouldn’t have had it any other way!”
