A very belated (and sad) update
For everyone that added posts to this one, I thank all of you. We did take Lir to the vet, this time with me demanding to have a full panel taken, etc (my vet is otherwise fantastic, but she's not one for ordering every single test under the sun at the same time).
While he was still overweight, his thyroid came back normal, but his heart was enlarged and he had some fluid buildup around his heart and lungs. He was placed on lasix and a 'cough suppressant', which worked very well for him, but only on occasion.
We (and against my vet's very fierce opposition) switched our cats to a raw diet since one of my cats has the feline version of IBD and he is still doing fantastic. So I switched my dogs, both my sheltie and our 9-YO scottie, to raw. Not only did he start losing weight (slowly), but for the first time ever his skin cleared up and he stopped licking his paws.
Not sure if the food or the meds were the sole cause, but for a while the coughing eased up. Vet was very happy with his weight loss (couldn't tell her about the raw diet though), even noted that the slight heart murmur she once heard was now gone and lowered his lasix, which, looking back now, I should have insisted he keep.
Fast-forward to this past holiday; Lir was doing 'well', slowing down his runs around the yard, happy to sit in his crate for his dinner, doing everything we felt an 'elderly' sheltie would do. His cough then came back with a vengence, and the vet put him back on the lasix. He was still slowing down, and on Christmas Eve, calmly took over one of the large dog beds we keep in front of the fireplace (his favorite spot), laid his head on his little ducky (his favorite toy) and went to sleep.
I know there are those that say to wait, but this past week, on a whim I looked online for a way to contact his breeder to let her know what happened. I guess in the past decade the breeder either stopped breeding or moved, since I couldn't find her, but I did find another breeder...who has a puppy...
My scottie has mourned his BFF, and our 7-month old Shiloh still looks around for Lir. Our Triad was broken. We will be picking up the sheltie puppy this weekend, not as a replacement for Lir (he's a blue merle like Lir was, but an admittedly odd-marked blue merle), but as the sheltie that needs to fill that surprisingly giant hole in our family.
We're already setting up to NEVER do anything we felt we did wrong with Lir (he was our first sheltie). I know that weight issues are a big thing with this breed since that coat can hide a lot of weight (plus Lir hated being picked up, so figuring out he was really heavy wasn't clear cut).
Again, and very belatedly, I thank all of you who responded for your advice adn suggestions. I DID use them when taking Lir to the vet, and I hope I can become a more frequent visitor to this forum so we don't make any mistakes (unintentional).
brandy
