Loss of a Friend

I’m very sorry that’s it’s been awhile since I wrote. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. Life happened over the last six weeks and it’s taken me a bit to get back on board.

Life in the house got very busy and was chaos for several weeks. I had projects coming out my ears with my business and construction people here every day working on the house which also is our home office. There was constant banging to a point where I couldn’t focus on work or writing for that matter. I had my niece visiting for several weeks, and sister in law here for several days, the dogs were cooped up because the gates had to be open. Schedules were out of whack, my diet was out of whack and I felt out of place and upside down.

Suddenly, when life seemed to be getting back to normal, the unthinkable happened. I lost one of my dogs; my best friend and companion for over 6 years.  It happened in a way that no fury baby mother would ever want to go through. She’s been gone two days now and my heart is still broken and I miss her, more than anything in the world. I always thought she would be with me until she was old and grey, but life did not work out the way I had planned.  

When she was about ten weeks old, she broke her back right femur. In many cases when they are this small, chance of recovery is slim and many times, babies need to be put to sleep. She was in a cast for first 20 weeks of her life, but it didn’t seem to stop her one bit. She learned to get around without that back leg just fine. The downside was that it healed very stiff and not quite right.  When her cast finally came off when she was 24 weeks old, the doctors told me as she got older, it would cause pain.  Rheumatoid arthritis would start affecting her. Other than very expensive surgeries, there would not be much I could do for her other than comfort her and give her supplements which she did take for many years.

She learned quickly, minded well and became my very best friend in life. She was with me and braved the move to Minnesota right along with me. She had never been on stairs before or played in the snow. Everything was new for her but in some ways I feel the stable life in the only home she ever knew with the only dog friends she had known got taken away from her. With some respects to her personality,  she was not the same dog after that and for this I feel much guilt.  She was still wonderful one on one, but she became very alpha; dominant and aggressive in many forms. She became protective-aggressive, possession-aggressive,  territorial-aggressive and many others. It was very tough for me to watch these behaviours slowly take over the dog I once knew her to be.  I slowly watched her leg deteriorate and I wondered how much pain it was causing her. I didn’t notice alot of things until after she was gone. It’s funny how you start replaying scenes in your mind after the fact. She had stopped climbing the stairs and no longer wanted to be with us up in the office. She became quite anti-social.  I knew it was happening, and I just couldn’t do anything for her.  Her behavior was starting to affect the conduct of her furry little brother and I could see the pattern repeating. It got to a point where my lovely little girl became someone I could not trust with other people or other animals.  I know that aggression is a sign of disease but is also a sign of pain. I will never really know for sure what took over her, but the loss of her loss cuts deeper than I ever imagined it would.  I miss her and I will for a long time. Probably forever.

As my way of getting myself back on track, I wanted to take this time to tell her how much she was loved. I know that life must go on, but it will proceed differently without her.