a good dog...

ross and i bought two little daschunds before we got married almost 10 years ago. first came jake our black miniature and then came max. you can see in the picture that max is an unusual color. he was called something along the lines of a double dapple piebald miniature dacshund. let me just make a note here that there was nothing miniature about max. max's eyes were the coolest...in order to get this color dog i think there was a lot of inbreeding done because one eye was blue and one was brown. the eyelashes above the blue eye were all white and the eyelashes above the brown eye were brown.

yesterday max seemed lazier than normal. by the end of the day we couldn't get him to go outside. he had vomited early in the day and at dinner time i mentioned to ross that something looked strange about max's face. by 10pm last night we determined he was probably on his last day or so because he wouldn't even eat the treat we brought to him. he wouldn't drink any water either. we were about to leave him be on his pillow and go to bed so i sat on the floor next to him just to love on him a bit. when he tried to lift is head we noticed that there was some blood coming out of his mouth.

at that point we called our friend to come sit with the kids while we took him to the 24hr. vet. hospital. i wrapped him in a towel and we loaded into the car. i am so thankful i got to hold him for such a long time. he always loved being in our laps with a blanket.

after the dr. took a look at him she felt that he probably had kidney disease, liver disease, cancer or a combination of two or more of these. we made the sad decision to have max put to sleep. i love my dogs but i am also very aware that they are dogs. i never thought i would be so sad about his death. the tech shaved his little leg and got his catheter in and then i held him while the dr. administered the anesthesia. about half way through the medicine he looked up at me as if to say, "goodbye". i am thankful i could be with him in those last moments.

this morning we told henry and daphne. i was really dreading telling henry being that he didn't handle the death of his goldfish very well. today, he was so sad. he was sitting in ross' lap and he just looked at us and said, "but max was my friend." he has seemed to take it in a little better as the day goes on and daphne gets it as much as a 3 yr. old can.
jake wonders around looking for max...he hasn't whined about it yet. once when max spent a few days at the vet jake cried all the time.

thanks for letting me say goodbye to our good dog...