Hello, so as the title says, I believe my late dog (12?M, shih tzu) had a parasite. I’m not sure what else I would call this, but parasite is what comes to mind.
Some backstory is that I found my dog about 5 years ago, beat up and malnourished on the streets. At the time, I was on vacation in New York City. It was an all expense paid trip for my work. I work as a photographer for a magazine, but it doesn’t pay very well, so I wasn’t able to pay for a vet for the dog. Thankfully, I was able to help him from home, and he was doing well until about a month ago. He had been sick a few times since I found him, but never like this.
About a month ago, he started acting odd. VERY odd. Not like his usually energetic self. He suddenly became very, very hungry, and was begging for food every few minutes. He also began to smell very bad. Almost like… rotten cabbage? He began to gain a LOT of weight, and not even just in his abdomen. All over his body… Legs, tail, face, and of course, abdomen. Then, he strangely, and suddenly stopped barking, and just making noise altogether, other than an occasional sigh. He would refuse to poop outside, and instead go on the floor. He would refuse water, and one day he peed what seemed like an entire river, and after, that never peed again. His skin began to get dry and flaky, and after two weeks of this strange behavior, the vomiting began. He began vomiting blood, and what appeared to be just any liquid left in his dry little body. After he stopped vomiting, he seemed to be completely dried out. He began refusing wet food, and any food containing any moisture. I couldn’t even get him to eat human meat, which he loved before this started.
After another few days, I noticed something off with his eyes. They appeared to be…. popping out…? It looked like something inside of his head was trying to push his eyes out. At this point, I couldn’t just leave him like this. I gathered all the money I had, and took him to the vet. After several tests, X-rays, and three days of waiting, the vet told me with sadness in his voice that he had found a large mass taking up my dog’s entire body. They apparently couldn’t even see his skeleton, or organs. They told me he had cancer, and it was so advanced, that they were surprised he was even alive. They told me I should put him down, but I couldn’t afford it due to the price of the vet visit alone. I contemplated taking him outside, and just shooting him, or running him over with my car, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I decided to let him pass on his own.
A few days after the vet appointment, I noticed that my poor little dog had open wounds, or sores, all over his body. Oddly enough, they weren’t bleeding at all! Inside of the wounds was just dry flesh. That worried me, so I called the vet. He told me to bring him back in, because when they tried to take a blood test, they couldn’t find a vein. They didn’t think to tell me because they assumed it was due to him refusing water, but now they were considering that he may have a blood clot. Sadly, I was still unable to afford it. God, I wish I could’ve. Maybe something could’ve been done to prevent what happened to my poor, sweet, little dog.
About a week before his passing, he was constantly needing to be warm. He was always snuggling up to me, or sitting on the floor heater. I also noticed his movements becoming stiff. It was as if he was unable to bend his joints. Three days before his passing, I noticed him becoming more, and more swollen. At this point, he didn’t even look like a shih tzu anymore. More like a vaguely dog shaped balloon. It got so bad, that one of his eyes popped out. I swear to GOD, to GOD, that when I was popping it back in, out of curiosity, I looked into his eye socket, and I swear ON MY LIFE, I saw another eye staring back at me. At this point, I was starting to suspect that this wasn’t cancer. Turns out, I was right.
Two days before he passed, he just stopped moving. He stopped moving, eating, pooping, just stopped everything. I thought he had passed on, but every once in a while, I would see him take a breath. Knowing he wanted to be warm, I wrapped him on a blanket, and placed him on the floor heater. On the day of his passing, I tried to offer him some water, which the vet had recommended after I reported that he stopped moving. When he wouldn’t drink it, I took a turkey baster, and squeezed water down his throat.
Suddenly, the cabbage smell I described earlier got so intense I almost vomited. He began violently twitching, which I thought was a seizure, until it became a full on muscle spasm, and then he was flailing around, and bouncing up and down. Fluid began coming out of every hole in his body. EVERY hole…. Ew…. Suddenly, he started growing even more, and more, and more, until I thought he was going to explode. My dog was literally inflating before my very eyes. His eyes popped out of his skull, and at this point he was about the size of a small yoga ball. Suddenly, to my horror, disgust, and sadness, his skin literally fuckin SPLIT!! HIS SKIN HATCHED LIKE AN EGG??!!! Out of my poor, little dog, emerged what looked like a giant fuckin cocoon! I glanced at my dog’s empty skin, and all his organs, and any moisture, or blood, or anything that was supposed to be inside of a dog, was just GONE. He was just skin, with whatever this thing was inside of it. I panicked, and ran to the kitchen. I grabbed the biggest knife I could find, and stabbed the cocoon. This horrible, foul smelling substance oozed out. It didn’t smell like cabbage, it smelled like straight vomit.
Suddenly, just like my dog had, the cocoon split open. Out emerged this horrible, dog sized creature. It was screeching, and writhing in pain. I couldn’t tell you what happened after that, because as soon as it hatched, I blacked out. Before I did, I guess I had tried to call 911, but had passed out before I could do so.
When I came to, my house smelled like puke and decay. I sat up, hoping I had dreamt that horrible creature, but to my horror, there it was. Laying before my eyes, was the horrible creature that had killed my dog. I barely remember what it looked like, because my brain has been trying to repress the memory, but picture this: a very skinny, wet, soggy, deflated looking, shih tzu sized, vaguely humanoid insect. It had mosquito-like wings, gross, slightly humanlike, eyes, a very dark brown skin color, and no visible mouth. It was dead. The water thankfully killed it, I would assume. That would explain my dog’s aversion to water. I don’t even wanna think about the possibility, but I think my dog might’ve died as soon as these behaviors started, and this… thing… was just using his body to feed, and eventually pupate. The only explanation I can think of, is that about a month ago, my dog came in from my yard with a weird bump on his back. Maybe something had laid eggs in him. I think this creature had some kind of fatal reaction to water, and that was why my “dog” was refusing water in the weeks leading up to this incident. I miss my dog, but I’m just glad this whole thing is over with. Does anyone have any insight? Any advice, or any idea what the fuck this thing was? And unrelated, but does anyone have any well paying job suggestions? I need some money for a doctors appointment to get this weird bump on my stomach checked out.