Well, we lost Sparky this morning.
Sparky was a big fuzzball, a Norwegian Elkhound. Fuzzy. And barky.
That’s him from late last year. He was a beautiful silver and the older he got, the more white he got on his muzzle. I’ve got other photos but they’re on the other computer.
About a month ago or so, Sparky was not too keen on eating and we figured it was his teeth. He was nearly 15 so there weren’t that much left of them. We took him in and they wanted him on an antibiotic and a dewormer before they’d do his dental. All precautionary stuff and quite normal. The vet also wanted him on a pain drug called Rimadryl (or something like that) due to his arthritis. None of that went well. We managed the dewormer but stopped the pain drug and the antibiotic. He was vomiting and eating grass and not eating. After the dewormer was done, we waited a few days then did the antibiotic again. Much better. A few days after it was done, he had a seizure. Back to the vets we go. He was horribly anemic and the vet’s thought was it was a tick disease. A likely scenario given the tick season here has been horrendous. Most of his symptoms fit that. But that antibiotic made him worse and his stool turned black from the blood. Back to the vet. This time, we finally reached the conclusion it was either cancer or an autoimmune blood disease, something like doggie leukemia. He didn’t quite fit the cancer profile since he wasn’t losing a huge amount of weight. Massive steroid and Pepcid was the treatment for the autoimmune thing. We took him back the next day to test his blood to see if the red cell count had improved. It had risen from 14 to 17 (low norm is 35) so we all agreed it was working.
Sparky had two great weeks. He was even eating regular dog food. He was barking for the first time in weeks. He had that little swish to his walk again.
Then Saturday he started having trouble getting up. We figured it was his arthritis again (we’ve been having sudden, quick, nasty storms which has caused me a lot of pain, too). He stopped eating. He could barely walk. By Sunday, he was extremely weak, could not stand up on his own, and was having a lot of trouble breathing. Red blood cells carry oxygen to the body. His tongue got paler and paler.
We wanted to take him in to see his vet vs another who we’d have to explain everything to. She wasn’t in on Monday so we opted to wait until Tuesday. But last night, we knew he’d never make it to the appt. We’d both been up with him since Sunday morning and we were exhausted. He was whining and grunting and nothing we did was making him better. At 2:30 this morning, we took him into the bedroom (we carried him on his bed) and put him where he normally slept (right where he blocked everyone in and he got to grumble when they stepped on him). We fell asleep listening to him breathe.
The alarm went off at 4:30 and when I turned it off, I checked on him. He’d slid off the bed (he seemed to be more comfortable laying like the sphinx, vs laying on his side) but was breathing. I spoke quietly to him then went back to sleep. I considered putting him back up on his bed but moving him had seemed to cause him so much pain, I decided not to.
When we woke up at 7, he was gone. He’d died right where he lay. While we were not awake to be with him at that moment, he knew where he was. Everyone was in the bedroom with us last night, including the cats. When I’d checked on him earlier, PopCorn was curled up on his bed. As we got up and said our goodbyes, the dogs went around him. Joella, who is very sensitive to my moods, had been close to me for the past few days. She sniffed his body and kept whining. Sam wouldn’t come back in the room. PopCorn was nervous.
We took him to the vets to have him cremated. We’ll get the remains back in about a week or so. We have all the dogs cremated since it is so difficult to dig a hole that big.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m glad Sparky had you all there. Thinking of you all.
Thanks. We are down to 4 dogs. We’ve not had this few in, well, a very long time. We have Casey (15), PopCorn (10ish), Joella (8), and Sam (3). Maggie was the one that died the past November.
I feel the need to explain the background in the image above. The kitchen used to have this lovely green flowery faded yucky kind of linoleum floor with a big seam going down the middle. Then we got Casey who decided linoleum was not only tasty, but was fun to peel up. We finally decided to take it all up and I let Lorna pick the paint for the floor. She picked that blue. Unfortunately, it lasted a long time before the dog toenails and various spills made the blue start to fade. In front of the door you can see a particularly bald spot. That’s where we get bumped almost every time we are carrying the water bowl. Next to the door jamb you can see where Casey tried to peel back the linoleum on the wall (yes, contact paper stuck onto linoleum glued to drywall. not our doing, trust me) but it wasn’t as much fun, I guess. That’s the doorway going to the back porch. Just out of site to the left of it is the doorway to the rest of the house. Sparky is seated next to the portable dishwasher and another door that leads to the Furnace Room. Yes, our house is laid out very very weird.
Thanks for the forward. We are so sorry about you losing Sparky! Each pet, much more than an animal sharing our house, is a beloved spirit that shares our life. You mentioned that you went back to sleep listening to Sparky breathe. I imagine he was comforted to hear the breathing of all his family, sleeping, as he slipped quietly into that painless, peaceful resting place.
I wonder what compels us to try to wrap words around such wordless experiences?
For several days I felt guilty as hell because I had promised him he’d not be alone. That he could feel safe to either stay or go. We were both so exhausted and he was so uncomfortable. And when he died, we were sound asleep. It was Lorna who pointed out that we were all there in the room with him, right where he and us usually were. The normalcy of the situation just keeps standing out in our minds. Once he was in the bedroom, he stopped most of his grunting and whining. We laugh, thinking maybe he was glad those two crazy humans had finally left him alone! (every time he whined, we were doing stuff to see what it was he wanted)