[SqueakyPeanut]

I have a 3 year old entire bull terrier bitch I rescued from an absolutely terrible situation that has left her with 2 fractured mandibular canines. I have had her only a short while, and I’m currently working on fundraising for her but it’s not going to be a very quick process. The problem is, she will not take any medication whatsoever. I had to work to earn her easily broken trust, so daily injections is completely not an option.
I want to save her so bad, but she is absolutely MISERABLE. She can hardly eat, which causes her extreme frustration (yes I cut it to appropriate size and I hand feed it to her) which causes her to lash out aggressively during and after meal times. At any given moment she’s on edge, she hates being touched and will flinch if you try. She loves giving me affection but doesn’t want me to pet her (touch sensitive) she constantly plays musical beds because she’s in too much pain to sleep. She always wants to be next to me but hates it when I do anything, she wants me to sit alone with her and relax 24/7 while she tries to relax too, asking me to give up my seat repeatedly (we rotate between 3 seating arrangements in my bedroom about every 15 minutes or so)

I can’t tell if I’m being selfish at this point. She needs relief and she needs it NOW, but I don’t know if I can do it. She could possibly have to live with this for 3 months or more before I can actually afford to get her root canals done. Is this something I should allow her a peaceful transition to the afterlife for, or should I just wait and save her?

it is difficult to manage, but I’m not worried about that. All I care about is if I’m doing the right thing for her, you have no idea how much I wish I could ask her…

 

[SqueakyPeanut]

Do the meds have to be given by injection?

My gut feeling is that if her problems can be solved within 3 months, and she is only 3 years old, she could still have a lot of decent quality life ahead.

Is there anything here that might help?

If/when you can't afford vet care (solutions, not...

Nobody's financial status is ever completely secure, and even emergency funds run dry unexpectedly sometimes for us all, so please no shaming or blanket assumptions about the supposed immorality of not being able to afford vet care. There is a stickied thread about Care Credit in this forum...

www.dogforum.com

So I was given some pain medication and some antibiotics for her in tablet form, but unfortunately, she will not take them no matter what food I put them in (she won’t eat anything that she must pick up in her mouth to eat because her lower jaw hurts too much) and when I give it with regular food she spits the pills out. I crushed them and put them in a liquid suspension form, but she won’t let me put the syringe in her mouth because of fear of pain.

and thank you for sharing those helpful tips! I reached out to my local rescue group and they said the “whole thing sounds weird” (referring to my dog’s injuries and my needing help with the vet costs) and then never replied when I told them I would be happy to send anything they needed for clarification or anything to verify to make them feel more comfortable about possibly helping. I also said I’d be willing to give her to them if it meant she could get the help she needs sooner, although she’s thriving quite well with me.

I strongly believe I can pull this off one way or another, I just wish there was a better solution for administering the medication to her. I feel like there simply MUST be a common sense solution I haven’t thought of yet

 

[SqueakyPeanut]

It's also possible instead of having root canals to simply have the teeth extracted at much less cost. It's not as nice a solution, but it's a solution. I know people who have done it. Sometimes needs must.

I was thinking the same thing, but then I learned that because of her mandibular anatomy, extraction of her canines would likely result in a jaw fracture ): evidently, those 2 roots make up a lot of the structure of her jaw and completely removing them would likely make it worse ): bull terriers often have oversized teeth and narrow mandibles like her