Sometimes, it is hard to find the sunny side or the silver lining. Sometimes, there isn't really a silver lining.
When you have dogs, sometimes you have to contend with fleas. And if you have fleas, sometimes you have to contend with worms. We'd been lucky for a long time with Hell Hound. He'd never gotten worms before. Well, he did this year. We'd been working in the backyard cleaning it up and had him out there with us. He's never spent much time out there and, apparently, our yard is flea infested. We bathed him and all. I got some over the counter anti-worm medication for him.
See? I guess I was a bit naive or whatever. Always thought if your dog gets worms, you buy some stuff over the counter and *poof!* they're gone. Little did I know. He got better briefly then got worse again. I finally took him to the vet on Thursday to get some prescription stuff. To the untrained eye, he had a bloated belly from worms. He was losing weight like with worms.
He might have worms. But, more importantly, that wasn't his belly and that wasn't his losing weight issue. He has organ failure. The vet, bless her heart, was honest. We could spend thousands of dollars to keep him going for another two months but the end will be the same. She removed some of the fluid from his belly (a liter and a half) to make him more comfortable. She said that two weeks is pushing it. I just wanted a few more days.
He's a good dog. The worms didn't kill him. The anti-worm medicine didn't kill him. Looking back, I can now see the signs of something wrong from months ago. He's always had a sensitive tummy. It has gotten more sensitive in the last year. And there were times we thought he was breathing a little hard but chalked it up to he was out of shape. All the worms did was probably weaken him enough for whatever the disease process was to advance.
My boy is only 5. He's been a good dog. He's smart...so very smart. We're lucky he never developed opposable thumbs. We'd have all been in trouble. And he knew the cats were the boss. One time, the little six pound cat herded this big galoot into his crate and wouldn't even let him turn around to lay down. She just sat there and stared at him. The other cat once made him stand in the corner and hissed every time he even turned his head. I used to hear him whining and, when I went to check to see what was going on, he was trapped on the landing and Big Cat sat on the lower stair, refusing to let him pass. He is a big ole 65 pound doggie and could have sat on her. But he was smart enough to know she was the boss.
I'm going to miss him. Bird has barely stopped crying since Thursday. She's been sleeping on the living room floor with him every night. On Monday evening, we all go in and all but one of us will come back. We'll do the last good thing we can for our baby and, soon, he'll be running through the fields of Heaven. I do hope it is segregated. I hate to think of him spending eternity being bullied by cats without me there to protect him.
I love you, Hell Hound. I'll miss your excited barks when you hear me pull into the driveway, your protecting barks to save me from the evil postman bearing bills, your jumping for joy when I walk in the door (yes, you learned not to jump on people and are correct we never said anything about not jumping near people).
I hope you'll have snow.
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