Lung problem in dog.

Our cuddly Walter had "kennel cough" several times throughout his life (about 5), including when we adopted him from our local Humane Society as a puppy. Three weeks ago is when this all started, Walter developed a cough and we proceeded to take him to the vet. Our vet informed us it was probably a standard infection/ "Cold" and proscribed us broad spectrum anti-biotics. Along with the exam for the cough we had blood work run on both our dogs and Walter had an elevated white blood cell count which were were told could be from "possible parasitic infection" or from the "cold". We gave Walter the correct dosage until the bottle was gone, which eliminated his cough and he seemed perfectly fine just in time for a trip out of town. My wife and I went on a 4 day vacation and left Walter and our other dog at a local boarder where the dogs are in a large outdoor area with 30+ other dogs. Upon return from our vacation Walter developed another "Cold"/Kennel cough and we proceeded to take him to the vet a second time. Again we were proscribed anti-biotics and we proceeded to give Walter the dosages on a regular basis. The vet said Walter had clear lung sounds and a strong heart beat.. Walter's kennel cough cleared up and we thought it was the standard deal again, but 1 day after being off of the anti-biotics he symptoms returned and with a greater intensity and his appetite was poor and he was slightly less energetic. The night of 4/3/2011 Walter seemed very uncomfortable and was coughing very often, we dug out the last of some cough syrup we were given with the anti-biotics and gave the rest of it to him and it helped him relax and go to sleep. The morning of the 4/4/2011 we took Walter to the vet again and had a chest X-ray done, the Vet informed me that Walter's right lung had collapsed, every lobe was dark with no signs of being functional, the vet also commented that he could not believe Walter was walking and functioning. He referred me to a specialist in my area and I rushed Walter to the specialist's office. There he had an ultrasound done and the specialist informed me that his right lung was "compromised" and would never be able to re-inflate. The options we were given were 1. Needle biopsy to try and determine what was in his lung (which we were told had a 70% accuracy rating), followed by IV anti-biotic treatment if it was infectious. 2. Surgery to remove his right lung, which was high risk, very expensive ($5,000) and had limited options for recovery/quality of life 3. Shotgun anti-biotics/high dosage anti-biotics without any information. 4. Euthanasia


The Vet kept on dancing around if it was cancer or not, he would not give us a strait answer "He is really young to get cancer, the only way we will know for sure is by doing the surgery" and every time I brought up the needle biopsy he always wanted to hit the point "its only 70% accurate".

We chose to Euthanize Walter with great sorrow, our home will never be the same without him. With a 1 in 3 chance the answers we got from the needle biopsy were going to be incorrect, with the amount of pain he was in, and the best outcome possible hindering his quality of life forever we felt we had no choice..

Why could my dogs lung not recover, what could have made my dogs lung irreparable? Was this vet giving me the run around? Did this vet have my dogs care his top priority? Should we have done more, seen something? I feel horrible but it was so emotionally overwhelming we didn't know what to do. Please, if you have any answers let me know, I would be eternally grateful.