Honor was born on 11-11-2001, he was the third of 10 puppies born that day, on Veteran's Day, so I gave him the name of Silver Lake's Medal of Honor. He was my pick puppy out of that litter to keep for show and to use
as a foundation stud dog. He was a beautiful baby, a shorthaired Saint Bernard, who loved me, loved his mom and his sister, and loved to show, he was a natural.

As he grew, he was straight and tall, never sick, always happy, he had been to the vet's only once in his life and that was for a rabies shot.
He had been 4 times for show grooming but that was the complete and total entries in his chart.

He started his show career at 6 months, was shown by his best friend (besides me) his Auntie Margaret, who also loved him very much. At 22 months he had accumulated 9 points, including one major, which thrilled me to death, I was and am very proud of him, he was turning out to be a wonderful show dog.

In July of 2003, he and the other dogs were outside playing with a friend's Cairn Terrier, and he turned too quickly and sprained his knee, he limped for a couple of days on his left rear leg, so I put him in the kennel to let him rest his knee and thought he would shortly get better. Since that didn't seem to work, I made an appointment with the vet, who had been the only vet he had ever seen. She didn't have the time to xray him that day, but gave me a prescription for Rimadyl. The VET didn't give me the
medicine it was handed to me by the office manager Lisa, who never said anything about side effects, what to watch for, anything. The vet at no time in our discussion suggested doing any blood work before starting the Rimadyl.

I had asked the vet myself to do blood draw just on the off chance that something else was going on, an infection, or maybe something else. I had them draw for a CBC, electrolytes, and being the nurse that I am, I included liver functions, cardiac functions, kidney functions, basically everything that they could test for. I held off giving him the Rimadyl till the next day after xrays of his knee and his hips were taken, and the results were back in, the results to all the tests were normal, totally normal with the
exception of a slightly elevated white count, which I wasn't really concerned about.

His x-rays showed slight fluid increase in his knee, not a big deal,
nothing out of place at all, his hip x-rays were great, I was pleased.

So I took him home and started him on the Rimadyl, 150mg, twice a day. It was fine the first day, the second day, his appetite started to decrease, I gave him both doses, 300mg total on the second day. When I got up on the third day of this treatment, he had had bloody diarrhea during the night, and several times that morning. This was after a total of FOUR,(4) pills.

I immediately started him on Tagamet, Imodium AD, IV fluids, with added electrolytes, and took him completely off all foods, except water. The bloody diarrhea continued, and this was frank blood, not dark stools, but frank blood. I contacted the vet who had prescribed the medicine and she told me to continue as I was doing.

The bloody diarrhea finally stopped on the fourth day after stopping the medication, so I started him on chicken and rice, which he ate, but he had developed other symptoms, he had some difficulty walking, but I attributed that to weakness, and lack of food. I made him some Saint Balls which are a combination of hamburger, several cereals, wheat germ, eggs, garlic, something he normally loved. He tried to eat them, ate may be two, and them refused to eat anymore. All this time I still had him on IV fluids to just to make sure that he was getting something in him.

I then switched to boiled chicken breasts, he ate them for about four days, and seemed to be getting better.
I was sitting out in the kennel with him, late in the afternoon,
he laid his head in my lap, where he was born 22 months before, and died.

I attempted to do CPR for almost 20 minutes with no good result, he was gone.
From the first day he took Rimadyl, to the day he died was less than two weeks, for all intents and purposes, he was in animal ICU, BUT the result was the same.

This beautiful baby that I had brought into the world,
died in my arms, all because of a terrible drug called Rimadyl.

I took his body to a different vet for a necropsy, the Rimadyl had destroyed this health dog's liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, and heart. All of which were normal at the beginning of his treatment with this Killer Drug. The pathologist was very very surprised at the results that he found, compared to the blood work done before the administration of Rimadyl, he could only conclude that some "outside" source had done this to this dog. I reported his death to Pfizer, the FDA, my vet, my new vet, and have told since then anyone and everyone who would listen, I yelled and screamed so loud that Pfizer finally offered me a "settlement" if I would stop talking about their wonder drug, I told told them to take their money and put it, well you know where.

Lynnie
Silver Lake Saint Bernards