We went to emergency animal hospital at 2am after the most loyal companion I will ever have was clearly in distress. Over the past 8 months or so her heart was enlarged and her trachea had collapsed… meds bought us a little more time and she was mostly her normal self except that any exercise/activity would send her into a coughing/choking spell. Well the other night she woke us up at 1am struggling to breathe… she didn’t snap out of it and we took her out to the animal hospital. The wonderfully kind vet there put her on 40% 02 and her blood oxygen level was still only 82% and We had to make the decision right then and there to let her go to stop her suffering. She slipped away in my arms, my heart broke and it has stayed broken. I’ve openly cried at home, work, the gym… you name it.
This little Maltapoo had an inimitable personality and probably 30 or more distinct routines, tricks, barks, and expectation's. But she also glued my family together. She was the first family dog, and a wonderful part of my children’s childhood experiences. She loved them all, and as they grew older and moved away, she was often the spark for the family text thread to be reawakened… “Send puppy pictures!”. When they came home she greeted them with a comical degree of enthusiasm that looked like more like epilepsy, dropping on her back and spasming until she was picked up. For all of her 12 years on earth she chose me as her personal resting spot- when I sat in my chair she immediately pawed up at me to pick her up and place her on my lap. Her absence is deafening.
I won’t babble any further. It’s good to share with some of you that I’ve seen go through this here and know what I am going through. I will say that her service to our family, and that’s what it was, was something deeply honorable. The intensity and the purity and the consistency of her affection for her family was something I was not prepared for, and her loss is equally outsized. Some dogs are just different and we were blessed, but now the bill is due.
This little 5lb 7oz dog enriched our lives, immensely.
