I got Andy on his last day at the pound. He was 2-3 years old at the time, a German Shepherd turned in with his brother (I adopted him, too). That was 11 1/2 years ago.
One week ago to the day, he stopped eating. He’d been running, playing with toys, and eating right up to that day. By Monday, when his appetite hadn’t really returned, I made the first appointment I could for him - Wednesday. I thought maybe he’d swallowed a piece of lambskin slipper he’d torn up. They took x-rays and said he either had lung cancer or blastomycosis (a fungal infection of the lungs, which at least has a 50% chance of survival). Yesterday the blasto result came back negative - the default was cancer. I’d kept him eating through the week by making him some homemade mac & cheese. Today he didn’t want anything. He wasn’t in pain, or so it seemed, just tire and having a hard time breathing. He went outside when I left the house - I had a volunteer commitment in the morning. When I got back in the afternoon, he got pets, but wasn’t very mobile. I knew he was getting bad - I put in a call to the mobile vet and was waiting for a call back to have hi come and euthanize Andy. I went to feed the horses and barn cat and when I came back up, he was gone.
We gave each other 11 and a half years of love. Goodbye, old man.
So sorry. You gave him an amazing life that he was able to spend with his brother. It’s one of the hardest things to go through, but it’s inevitable. All we can do is love them while we have them.
