She died today but at least she died in the arms of someone who loved her.
We think our beautiful, mischieveous shepherd cross spent the first 10 years of her life in a home - she did not after all, spring fully grown and whole from the forehead of a god. But we don't know her story, just that around a year ago she turned up at the shelter. She was frightened, fearful and skittish. Her energy levels were spectacular and we kept checking to see if she was indeed the 10 years her card labelled her.
The first thing she did was jump a 6 foot fence and escape, trailing the long lead intended to allow her to be captured INSIDE the park. Then she got hit by a car. Then she disappeared for several days.
and was found, bruised, hungry and scared 2 days later but fine.
She then spent the next year capturing hearts with her mischievous antics and boundless energy. She lived for kongs and would leap joyfully into the air to capture them and gallop back to eye the walker expectatnly . She was a two-kong girl as her manners were not the best but the routine worked.
We also watched with heavy hearts as week after week passed... as person after person walked by her expectant hopeful gaze and onto to another dog ... always, always ANOTHER dog... not once in all her time there did I even know of anyone who wanted to meet her - not once did I hear of one person looking into those sweet, mischievous brown eyes and thinking, yeah, there's my girl!
Then those of us who loved her noticed that crazy energy was diminishing ... that her glossy blonde, black-tipped coat was dulling....
and it turned out she was dying.... her kidneys failing, her liver ravaged.
Told to expect only 4-6 weeks by shelter staff, hearts breaking, we scrambled to find her a foster, somewhere, anywhere that she could find, for those few precious last weeks a feeling of home.
and one of the walkers (bless you, Souha) stepped up and 10 days ago, our beloved girl finally went home.
For a week she cried and paced and whined and barked and the angel that had embraced her slept on the floor and went without rest... until suddenly from one day to the next she figured it out - this was HOME. This was a GOOD place. There was healthy food and pats and love... there was your own little den and lots and lots and lots of caring and attention and focus. There were kongs to be tossed and walks to be taken. There were two other dogs to muscle and challenge (and even interact with, eventually)) and there was consistency...
And then the story changed.
In bringing her the vet used by fosters, our angel foster mum discovered that her kidneys were clear and yes, while her liver WAS dying, she had (with luck) a year to 18 months .... a FAR cry from the 4-6 weeks we had been told. But our girl was still not good .. her tummy swollen and distended with fluid.
Bringing her down to the recommended vet, she arranged to have the fluid drained. Picking her up Tuesday, the two of us were appalled at the angry, swollen mess of a wound. Despite our worries, we were told it was "normal".. that the bleeding would stop, that the 'bruising' was simply from the cathetars which had been inserted to drain her tummy ....
And we brought her home and she was quietly (our crazy girl!), peacefully happy ... and curled up in her own little crate but wasn't hungry or thirsty ...
and so our angel foster mum made an appointment for this morning, She was fretting. This wasn't like our girl.. this lethargic, quiet, sad little dog.... and last night in the cold early hours before dawn, she choked and our foster mum, sleeping on a mattress on the floor beside her, jumped up and our girl choked and gasped and the blood spewed from her mouth and from her rectum and after a horrific, choking, terrible length of time, our girl's spirit decided it was enough... and clasped in the lap of love and caring, her soul slipped out and kong in mouth left for the rainbow bridge ...
Goodbye sweet spirit .. I don't know why you were denied the comfort of home and hearth for your last years. I don't know how someone could abandon such a blythe, mischievious spirit, such exuberance and such boundless capacity for love ... and I don't know why you were denied those last months of life promised you... months that would have been filled with the caring and love and attention you deserved ...
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