It's okay, Max. You're right, buddy.
When I saw Max on the schedule today
and I saw that he hadn't been eating for
quite a while... That makes my heart sink.
Especially in a 16, 17 year old dog,
it's a concern.
I got him when he was six weeks old.
He's part of my family.
You right?
So you hear that cough?
Can I get Max better?
I don't know.
Hello. How are you?
I'm Dr. Kate.
At the Bondi Vet hospital,
Worried owner Lana has brought in 15 year old Max
because he stopped eating.
You're an old boy, aren't you buddy?
So he hasn't eaten for two days?
Two and a half.
It's okay, Max. You right, buddy?
Not very well. Come on, Maxie.
Let's go in.
Let's take Maxie in.
I got him until six weeks old.
He's part of my family.
"I think he's lost a lot of weight since we saw him last."
"Do you think he's lost a lot of weight?"
I think it's age.
"He always like ate normal only the last couple of days..."
Okay.
"When I saw Max on the schedule today and I saw that"
he hadn't been eating for quite a while...
that makes my heart sink.
Especially in a 16, 17 year old dog.
Not eating for a couple of days,
lost seven kilos in a year.
It's a concern.
Maxie is blind.
I think he's blind.
Yeah I know, he's blind.
Max, I think it's a continuation
of what's happened two years ago.
His body, not so good.
See, he's breathing like this.
See how he's struggling to get air.
"And you can see his abdomen there,"
that's moving.
You right?
So you hear that cough?
So he's got fluid in his chest.
"It's like kind of having, like, a wet sponge."
And they can actually fill with oxygen.
So what's happening,
"he would be feeling right now like he would have asthma."
Main thing, do a blood test.
Full blood tests. If something is wrong,
blood tests will show you something wrong.
"I think what Lana would like me to say"
is that we can do all these tests
and we can do all of these treatments
and that Max is going to get better.
And sometimes that is the case.
Sometimes that is the case.
So there is some point to do a blood test.
We can get some clues
and we can get some leads
about where we actually go to from here.
But Max is a very, very elderly dog.
16 to 17 years old is a very old dog.
Can I get Max better?
I don't know.
He's a good boy, isn't he?
Okay buddy.
"So what I'm going to do is run some in-house bloods."
"They're going to be back within the next sort of hour or so,"
Just help him, please.
Listen.
Devoted owner Lana can't imagine life
without her special boy.
"I want him to live much longer because he's a pleasure."
"Next Kate is doing an X-ray to see what's going on"
with Max's breathing.
With Max's lungs, is that there's not much black in here.
So you can see that there's a whole bunch of fluid that exists
in this chest cavity.
This all here is lung field.
"And this is supposed to be black, and it's not."
"I have a sneaking suspicion that this is actually probably coming"
from his right side of his heart.
"In other words, his right side of his heart possibly collapsed and failing."
If I can help,
I help. Because I am against just do a job
And next dog.
Sorry, that's part of my family.
Lana is now desperately hoping Max's blood results are good.
So what we can see here is we're starting to get into
multi-organ dysfunction.
We've got high kidney enzymes.
In fact, one of his kidney enzymes is so high
"that it's actually unable to read on this machine."
"I'm really devastated about these blood results."
I can't give Max new kidneys.
I can't give Max a new liver.
"A lot of these problems... I can't make his bone marrow"
produce more red blood cells.
So this might be the end for Max.
You right Maxie?
He's just having a little sleep.
Kate now has to gently explain to Lana
"how much Max's health is deteriorating."
Max is a very, very sick dog.
He is 100% suffering.
And I'm not entirely sure
right now that Lana knows how sick Max is.
I'm really sorry.
He's not going to come back from this.
Honestly, I don't even know that he's going to make it the night.
"He's just deteriorated today to a point"
like all he wants to do is sleep.
One of the very difficult things
about being a vet is to bring up
the idea of potentially putting the dog to sleep.
"It's a very difficult conversation to have to have"
And honestly,
I feel as though that the duty that I have is to relieve suffering.
"And I try and see this in the most positive light as I possibly can see"
this... is to relieve suffering,
and I hope I can do that job well.
Poor Max.
Later that day, Max's brave battle
ended peacefully with Lana by his side.