He had a lesion in his tail compressing the nerve, causing him pain and making him try to bite his tail, on further x -ray he had other lesions in his hips - vet wasn't sure if they were cancer or some form of osteo congenital malformation.
Apparently these could not be treated with any degree of success and Kohl would have deteriorated.
The staff at the vets were fantastic, we got to say goodbye to our best mate - the kids and Claire and myself are just a mess.
We would love another GSD at some stage, maybe when we've stopped looking outside expecting Kohl to be waiting for us with his ball in his mouth.
We tried everything we could to help him and in the end the decision we had to make just sucked.

Poor baby, he did think there was a monster trying to sneak up behind and hurt him. I am so very sorry that it was something that couldn't be fixed.

It will also be good for you to know that it wasn't a behavioural thing like the vet and behaviourist first told you it was. As in my post of the 21st July I did say we had one dog who chased his tail because of a pinched nerve. Fortunately for him anti-inflammatories reduced the swelling and took the pressure off the nerve. In his case he did not have a lesion doing it, just some swelling from trauma.

You have to know you did your best for Kohl - in the long run it sounds as though you have saved him from a lot more distress. Poor baby - and he was just that, a baby. Big hugs to you all.

So sorry about your sad news. My thoughts are with you.

I am so sorry to hear your sad news - hugs to you all

Hi there, we have had many experiences with this tail chasing drama, ( 18 Plus Police pups ) and throughout our fostering we were instructed clearly not to permit this behaviour, apparently at some point in a GSD life area that tail becomes a fine chasing target, and taking into consideration that these here GSD's are fairly focused on seeking and retrieval, from our experience it is an attention or boredom getting moment, we cured this by re-directing the focus with a raggy, or any other controlled toy, by that i mean having a special toy that the pup only gets to play with when you permit, over time i have found that leaving permanent toys around create complacency with the GSD's, but if you have controlled play with a fovourite then your dog and human bond will be very rewarding, another way that we started our no tail policy was to get the pup to sit face on and gently pat the throat and indicate that this behaviour is not accepted (with kind words of course) then directly did some short lead walking


hope this helps some

Dirk

Hi There,


Just another small point here after reading some of your posts, the Pup may have a small seperation disorder syndrome starting, as you state that when some of your family are not within the immediate area the Pup gets somewhat stressed and has a confidence breakdown, we addressed this issue by making sure that our pups had their own time in the kennel and run with no human contact for a period of time every day, i know that this sounds cold and unfeeling but i believe it to be an important part of the dogs and your future development.


Dirk

oh poor baby, I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine loosing Scooby, Hugs to you family.

Hi guys I just read your post on Kohl's update. How sad for you... I have been reading it with interest as my old boy is also Kohl and I hadn't seen anyone with his name before. My deepest sympathy to you and yours

Kathy