What's up with Lucie?

 

On April 17th and 18th, from 6:30pm on Lucie was drooling nearly all the time and acting scared when outside after dark. The drooling continued during the nights and was just the oddest thing. She never vomited. Took her to our vet on April 19th. He found her to be healthy in perfect condition and thought maybe she was having anxiety. As she has been aging, she has been starting to show signs of her being slightly slow to get up with her back legs but it was not pronounced at all. She was still jumping on the couch and going up and down the stairs. As a preventative measure, our vet placed her on galliprant (1 per day) and gabapentin (1 pill in the morning and one at night) which I started on April 19th. 

Lucie waiting her turn to see Dr. Johnson on April 19th.

On April 20 Lucie was not the same. She was no longer able to bend down to drink from her water bowl. She would walk over to the bowl but couldn't bend down. I thought to myself, did she hurt her back? As the days continued she continued to decline to the point that her back legs couldn't hold herself up for a bowel movement. At the recommendation of our vet I placed her in confinement and increased the dosage to an addition time during the day. She continued to decline. Then I started to research the drugs that she had been placed on. I was surprised by all of the side effects and issues that other dogs have had from these meds. Lucie had never tried these meds before. I stopped them both on April 25. 

On April 26 I took her back to our vet. My husband placed her into our FJ Cruiser and she didn't move an inch the entire trip. She didn't even get up when Dr. Johnson came out to see her which is not like Lucie at all. He lifted her out and examined her. Heart/lungs sounded good. She walked for him. From everything he could see she looked good. After we got home that evening, she started drinking from the water bowl on the floor again. We thought we were on the mend.