Had to say goodbye to my bestest buddy a week and a half ago. Came up limping on 3 legs the Sunday morning after Xterra Lory, diagnosed with an inoperable tumor Monday night and gone on Friday. There was a slim chance the tumor was an abscess so we'd been giving him antibiotics and pain killers since the vet assured us he was in pain though aside from not wanting to bear weight on the bad leg he seemed his perfectly normal self. Tearing around the house and yard, barking, playing with his toys and the garden hose, full of himself, pure Strummer. Then Thursday night his leg looked bigger and by Friday morning his leg started to explode in size, a big new lump around his hock, obviously not an abscess. Still his crazy self though. We'd been torturing ourselves all week over what to do. He didn't seem in pain despite what the vet said but who can say with a dog like Strummer. But after his leg blew up so quickly on Friday the decision was obvious. Difficult, heart breaking but obvious.
Could not even bring myself to write about it until now. Not that this is easy.
This photo came up as a memory to share on my Facebook the other day.
I hate Facebook. Been avoiding it more than usual partly for this very reason. Had to tell people about Strummer though, did not want to explain it over and over. Not even really happy about writing about it now but I have to put something here.
What to say, what photos to post? The task is overwhelming. The whole story of his life with me is in this blog. How to whittle it down to a single post? Impossible.
The very last photo I took of him is in the post below, having his morning nap in the sun with Ruby on May 25, a crappy cell phone picture. This photo below was taken 2 days prior with my point and shoot. Not very interesting but I can't bring myself to pour through all the zillions of photos, not right now anyway.
He was such a force of nature, we were sure he'd live to 15, the only questions was whether he'd live to 16 or 17. As such he'd been a bit neglected with Lola approaching 16 and having a noticeable decline in mobility and Ruby being a new dog and then having surgery, Strummer was being pushed to the background a bit and I'd been making efforts here and there to have time for him. I'd been making plans for stuff to do with him this summer post agility career. It turned out we never even had a final trip to the Rez for swimming, one of his favorite things aside from agility. At least he was his crazy self right up until the end. I suppose that's something. But I'll never again name a dog after a punk rock icon who passed away suddenly, tragically and way too early while he was still putting out some of his best work.
So sorry for your loss.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteIm so sorry. My heart breaks for you.
ReplyDeleteThese days I find myself weeping whenever hearing about the death of other dogs I've known, sometimes uncontrollably. It has been almost 2 years and I miss Tika and Boost so much. I just wanted to come back here to note that I wanted to write more about both of them and couldn't at the time, and wanted to select photos of the two of them at the time and couldn't, and I still haven't. The only time I've managed to do that with one of my dogs was when Remington had cancer at 9 but I was able to write up his story and select photos before he died, when it was easier. Yet even with that experience, I couldn't manage it beforehand with the Merle Girls. So weird that memories can be wonderful and painful all at the same time. Pretty sure that we're not the only one who struggle with this.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Cancer Sucks.
What we both have in place, though, are our blogs with so much about our lives with dogs already captured, if and when we're ready to go back and relive the memories.
My condolences all over again on Strummer and now on Lola.
Thanks. It was hard going through the photos to find some of Lola but at least now I can look at photos of Strummer and enjoy the memory of him without it hurting so much. And yeah, their stories are in the blog, I'm not sure what else I could say.
ReplyDelete