One Week Later

In just over an hour it will be one week since I took my precious dog, Buddy, to the vet for the very last time. I still miss him terribly. I have cried every single day over him, with the freakish exception of yesterday which may have just been exhaustion. I still look for him to come down the hallway when I'm getting ready for bed. I wake up in the middle of the night and look down off the side of the bed to check on him and he isn't there. The pain feels like it's going to rip me apart sometimes. I've had the screaming cry, the sobbing, the quiet never ending flow of tears... to some people they are just pets, to me he was my furry four legged child. The librarian at school put a book called "Dog Heaven" in my mailbox. It made me cry, but it made me smile too. I know Buddy is out of pain and in a better place. Within the next week the vet I took him to will call and let me know that his ashes are ready for me to pick up. I know it will be hard, but I'm hoping it'll help in some way to know that Buddy is back home here where he belongs. Thank you for all of the comments on my posts this week. Every single one distracted me for a few moments and put a smile on my face. I love every single one of you so much! I'll be back to let you all know what I've been up to in the craft and flea market therapy soon.

Last Night

When I came home from work yesterday, Buddy wasn't at the door to meet me. He also didn't come when I called his name. I came through the living room and found him laying down in the kitchen. He got up and went outside to use the bathroom and came back in like normal. I took Charlie and put him in his crate, Buddy came in and laid down on his blankets beside my bed and we all went to sleep to take a much needed nap.
I woke up four hours later and couldn't find Buddy anywhere. I started to worry that I had left him outside and didn't remember. I checked the livingroom, kitchen, bedroom, and then checked them all again with no sign of him. That's when I went back and found him lying on the bathroom floor. He was just laying there, breathing pretty shallowly, and was fairly limp as I pet him. Over the next few minutes he got up and began to wander around the house. He was running into things and stopping to lean against anything near him and looking for some place to hide.
I called my vet's answering machine to tell them that it was time and I would need to bring him in in the morning. As I watched Buddy I began to worry he wouldn't make it until morning. I called the vet again and wrote down the number to the emergency clinic. My mom came to get us and took us there. Buddy let me pick him up and carry him which he hasn't done since he was a puppy. They took us into a back room and I laid Buddy down on a blanket covered table where he stayed with his head on my arm. One of the ladies came in with a vet and they talked to us and then gave Buddy a sedative shot to make him fall asleep. I stood there with my arms around him and my head on his shoulder as he slowly started breathing easier and closed his eyes. We left around 11:50 after kisses, tears, pets, and whispered goodbyes so that the vet could give him the euthanasia shot.
Today would have been his 12th birthday. Part of me wanted to stay with him until midnight so that he would be 12, but another part of me knew that he was sleeping and no longer really with me, and that God had already answered my prayer to let him live until his birthday because he would be born again in Heaven on that day.
I stayed home from work today. There was no way I could go in with how I'm randomly crying. Even though there are five other pets here, three of which are four legged mobile ones, the house feels empty without my Buddy. I will love and miss him forever.

My Children

I've just added pictures to the right side column under the blogs I follow of my pets a.k.a. children in case you are interested in seeing the rascals I refer to so often! I tried to choose pictures that I thought captured their personalities, but apparently I haven't uploaded any recent pictures of Charlie and he sorta moves too fast or is in too much trouble for me to capture it on film most of the time! LOL In light of my current situation with Buddy I wanted to have their pics posted on here since they are such a huge part of my life. :)

Give your furry, wet nosed, warm hearted friend a cuddle and kiss from me and my zoo tonight... we often take them for granted.

My Sweet Dog

This is Buddy, my soon to be 12 year old Pomeranian/Sheltie mix.


He's lived a good life... being spoiled completely rotten...


I took him to the vet today because I had noticed him sleeping a lot more recently and when I pet him I could feel his back bone. This is a dog that has always been on the heavy side... he was 39 pounds at his heaviest. He got down to about 32 when we got the house two years ago which was a good healthy weight for him. When he stepped on the scale at the vet today... it said 21.1 pounds. He had lost one third of his body weight since his last visit a year ago. As I was waiting for the vet I was petting him and realized that I could fit both hands completely around what is now his waist. I immediately started crying because how did I not notice that much weight loss sooner! The vet assured me that she would have had difficulty too seeing how he's a total fur ball. They took some blood and after getting back his lab results discovered that there is something severely wrong with his liver. She says she's pretty sure it's liver cancer, that there is nothing that can be done, that I couldn't have made a difference by catching it sooner, that he isn't in pain... just kind of ho hum like you are when you have the flu, and that me bringing in the new dog didn't have any effect on this- depression isn't a factor here or something that he is battling. She gave him a drug cocktail shot... with penicillin, prednisone, and a few other things I don't remember. I will know by Monday if it is helping him, hopefully it will spark his appetite and perk him up a little bit... give us a couple more weeks maybe? The vet doesn't think it will work because of how bad his levels are. I've never had a pet last even a year growing up until I got my recent six pets. Growing up all of our animals disappeared or got hit by cars. Now I have a 14 year old cat, a 3 year old cat, a 5 year old turtle, 1 year old hamster, and a soon to be 1 year old Pomeranian, plus my dear Buddy who will be 12 in April. It's hard to even consider not having him around. It's hard to think of 12 as old when I'd like for him to live as long as people do. So this post is dedicated to my forever puppy Buddy, my first dog.


He's sleeping now on the couch... looking as healthy as ever and like he could jump up and run through the house like he's still a pup. It's going to be hard to let him go.

Charlie's First Week: Lessons Learned

I bought this crate for Charlie because he is partially crate trained... we had a little bit of confusion about this as Buddy decided he wanted inside it instead!

Day One: Never pick up a cute puppy if you don't want to buy it

Day Two: Puppies get you lots of attention out in public

Day Three: Some puppies cannot be contained by a baby gate- they simply see it as another opportunity to plan a great escape (I'm baffled because he didn't chew his way through it and it's twice as tall as him!)

Day Four: Puppy naps are a great opportunity to take a shower

Day Five: Rugs, potty pads, and anything else not attached to the floor are toys to be drug through the house

Day Six: You don't have time to watch your favorite show when there's a puppy driving the other animals crazy

Day Seven: We have our fingers crossed that things will keep getting better!

<3>

Story of the day: My mom came over to visit the animals while I was out shopping with Sarah. She calls me cracking up because she let the dogs out to pee and when Charlie came back in he had something in his mouth. My mom thought it was a stick... turns out it was a big fat worm!!!

EEEEEK!

I laughed so hard... and Sarah gagged! :P

Charlie and The Great Escape

Okay, I left Charlie home alone with the others for the first time. I put up the baby gate so that Charlie was all set up in the kitchen/dining room and had the others running around the rest of the house. I put a blanket over the top of the gate to cover a small hole at the top.

We went to dinner and I got home about 45 minutes later. When I opened the door who ran to greet me? Charlie and Buddy! The baby gate stood with the blanket completely undisturbed and Charlie was happily running around with my bigger doggy. Apparently, I have an escape artist on my hands!

Furry Treasure Find

Here's what I got at the Covered Bridge Festival:



Yup, that's right- a puppy! He's a full blooded 2 and a half month on Pomeranian. His name is Charlie (after Charlie in All Dogs Go to Heaven). He's registered, not AKC, but one of those- I left his papers in the car. He's keeping me and my other furry four legged children busy, but he s a total sweetie! More pics to come!