Gunner the Diabetic Dog

At the beginning of October 2024, my adorable, sweet Maltese started showing symptoms of a UTI. He was constantly desperate for water, was having accidents in the house, and started losing weight. I took him to a vet, expecting to get him some antibiotics and we’d be on our way. A couple of days later, I got the news that he had diabetes, and the vet recommended that, due to his old age and the constraint of money, I euthanize him.
This was quite shocking to me as I did not know that dogs could even get diabetes. I absorbed the news that weekend, talked with my parents, and decided to get a second opinion. At the time, Gunner was incredibly lively and played with his sister throughout the day. He wasn’t acting differently in any way other than the constant need to use the bathroom and the drinking. 
I took him to see his second vet, and they came to the same conclusion. Gunner has diabetes. With a diagnosis in hand, we started getting his blood glucose under control. The first step was changing his diet. Gunner had been on a free-feed schedule and ate a mix of decent but affordable over-the-counter dog kibbles, but all that had to change. His vet recommended I change him to a meals-based schedule, morning and evening, and he was placed on a prescription diet with low carbs and high fats. In addition to his morning meal, he would be given an insulin injection, 2 units specifically. I had to shave a chunk of his hair on his upper shoulder to get easy access to his skin. 
After a week of these changes, I brought him back to his vet for a test to measure the effectiveness of the insulin on his glucose levels. This is done by drawing his blood at three intervals: once before the insulin is administered to get a baseline, once after the insulin has been in effect for a substantial time, and once after the insulin has worn off. The goal is for the readings to curve, starting high, dropping down, then returning up. Unfortunately, Gunner’s first glucose curve did not curve at all, which, all things considered, isn’t too crazy because he had only been on insulin for around four days. The concerning part of this was his age and breed. Small, older dogs are susceptible to something called Cushing disease. When a dog has cushions, the body overproduces a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol helps control stress and metabolism and triggers the immune system. According to his vet, the issue with identifying Cushing’s in Gunner was the similarity of symptoms between diabetes and cushings — constant thirst and peeing overlap in the two diseases. So what did we do? We waited. If his next glucose curve came out well, then we wouldn’t have to worry.
Two weeks after this, he had another glucose curve. This time, he did, in fact, curve in the way the vet wanted to see. However, his blood glucose was still high enough that they were concerned. His insulin dosage increased from two units once a day to two units twice daily. 
This whole process has been incredibly difficult emotionally, time-wise, and financially. All his vet bills have totaled north of 1,500 dollars so far. He is as energetic as always, though still underweight, and is making his way toward being a healthy, happy old man.

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• animals
• diabetes
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