Tonight Tasha and I had to say goodbye to our beloved dog, Teddy.
Here’s what happened: two weeks ago, I came home late from a night out with my karate buddies and Teddy was laying in the kitchen looking stunned. Â He didn’t want to get up, but after some coaxing he went into the back yard and laid down. Â He didn’t want to get up from there, and I was worried about him but he came in, had a treat and some water, and then went to his normal position by the front door. Â The next morning, he seemed to be acting normally so we chalked it up to his phenobaribital drugged state and the late hour.
Later in the week (last Wednesday) I went to the vet and they ran his normal battery of blood and levels test, they said his white cell count was a little high but they chalked that up to an ear infection and gave me meds.  I explained the problem that we encountered a few days prior, and the vet prescribed some anti-inflammatory pain medicine for him to help his achy old hips.  He responded fairly well to that medicine and was back to normal for a few days.
The last couple days, he has been increasingly lethargic but would usually stand back up and head outside. Â He seemed fine this morning. Â Tasha told me that he laid in the kitchen in a dazed way, and it seemed like his breathing was a little more labored than usual. Â When I got home he continued to be this way, and I tried to pick him up to get him on his feet and he put forth no effort to stand or walk. Â He also refused food and water, except for a bowl of water we put near him when we went out for awhile. Â When we had come back, he had drank all the water and spit it back up. Â His breathing was getting more labored and he really didn’t want to move at all.
I had called to get him a vet appointment tomorrow morning, but after seeing that he continued to be in bad shape we took him to the emergency vet clinic. Â Jessie and Jeremy Robertson came over to help watch Eve (who was asleep) and Jeremy had to help me carry Teddy out on a tarp since he wouldn’t walk on his own. Â The vet tech took him in to the surgery room to assess his condition, and the doctor came out within 15 minutes to tell us that they had found a good sized tumor on his spleen. Â They said that 2/3 of the time it turns out to be cancer, 1/3 of the time it doesn’t… but either way they’d have to remove his spleen which is a pretty major surgery.
If he made it through the surgery, it would have only bought him about 30-60 days (most of that recovering from the surgery. Â The doctor said that he had blood in his abdomen, so the choice was either risky surgery for only a small amount of time, or we could let him go peacefully. Â We made the right choice for him, even though it was extremely painful for us. Â We got a chance to say a tearful goodbye, and I stayed with him while they administered the medicine.
I remember the day we adopted that dog. Â He weighed in at around 117 lbs and looked more like a watermelon than a dog. Â He quickly took to life outside a crate, sleeping with Tasha and I most nights until his seizures made it hard for him to get up on the bed. Â He used to love the snow, and would bound around like a puppy whenever it snowed enough for him to do so. Â In recent years, bounding took the form of rolling face-first in the snow but he still loved it. Â He used to keep me, John, and Matthew company in the basement at night. Â He used to love his walks in the open space together, especially when Eve would come along with us.
He was a good friend. Â He was great with Eve. Â We were lucky to have him in our life. Â I’m going to miss him, bad breath, gas and all.
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