Blog note

We had one of our dogs put to sleep Friday.  He was my former daughter in-law’s beagle and I thought he was 13, but my son told me that when he informed her of his death,  she said he was 15 years old.  He was an obese beagle, who had a cranky streak, but he loved me and followed me wherever I went in the house.   He was always laying on the floor near me when I’m on the computer.

The past few months have been a downward spiral  – heart problems, COPD, then he tore an ACL tendon in his left back leg.  Due to his medical problems and the obesity, he wasn’t a candidate for surgery.  He seemed to be doing much better lately.   He’d lost some weight and was moving more.   Although the 8 medications he was on were tiresome to administer, I was hoping he’d be around for a long while yet.  Thursday morning he couldn’t stand up and when I helped him up he was wobbly and kept falling on his left side.  I sat on the floor and fed him canned dog food Thursday and carried him outside to do his business that day, but he needed help to even stand up for that.

The vet told us he had injured his right leg and hip and he was trying to shift his weight to the left side.  She said he was in a great deal of pain and he was already on a pain medication.  We decided to have him put to sleep and that’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Sure, there are 5 other dogs  here, but I still miss him.  Let’s see 2  were my oldest daughter’s dogs and one was my youngest daughter’s dog and 2 belong to my husband and me – all of them old dogs and some with serious medical problems, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time crying the past few days and worrying about going through this again in the near future.  I’ll try to get back to blogging this week.