Tell me about your beloved pet

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m in mourning for my best friend, TC. I had to rush him to the vet’s a week ago last Friday because he had labored breathing. They determined that he had congestive heart failure and kept him overnight to treat him. I took him home on the following Saturday. On Monday I had to take him back to the clinic; he wouldn’t eat and just didn’t seem to be himself. Further testing found that his kidneys were crashing and he went downhill fast.

If we treated the heart failure with Lasix, it would cause his kidneys to fail. If we treated the kidney failure, it would cause his lungs to fill with fluid. His doctors did the best they could, they kept him in the hospital for three days trying to balance his fluids and meds. But the poor little guy just didn’t respond to any of the treatments.

TC The Wonder Poodle was nearly 19 years old. My daughters grew up with him, and all my grandchildren loved him. For nearly two decades, he was my constant companion and shadow. He never strayed more than a foot away from me. He was the poster child for love & devotion.

On Wednesday morning one of his doctors called me and told me he wasn’t doing well. She asked me to come in to see him right away; and that it was time to talk about some ‘hard decisions’. I went to the clinic and they brought my little boy into the exam room to see me. He was hooked up to an IV machine and looked totally miserable. His abdomen was swollen from toxins that his failing kidneys couldn’t excrete. My poor, sweet baby. He couldn’t sit up, yet he held his head up so that he could give me kisses.

The vet told me the results of that morning’s bloodwork, and it was dismal. Much worse than the day before; and she told me it would just get worse. At that point I looked TC in the eye (literally, as he had grown blind in his left eye), and I asked him how he was feeling. I swear; he gave me a look that said “Mom, I feel really crappy, I miss you; and if I can’t leave this place to be with you at home; I’d just rather not bother.” In other words, he made the decision for me.

It was one of the hardest decisions I will ever make in my life. I signed the euthanasia certificate with shaking hands. Then the vet tech came in the room with The Tray, and the vet asked me if I was ready. Yeah, right; there is never a good time to say goodbye to your best buddy. I held my little boy and told him what a good boy he was. How he was Number 1; and that no other would ever take his place. I thanked him for all the good years we had together; and then I told him it was OK to go to sleep and get the rest he deserved.

As the vet depressed the plunger with the blue potion into his IV, TC’s last act on this earth was to give me one last kiss. I will never forget how sweet he was to the end, or the wonderful friend I was blessed with.

2

I’m sorry for your loss, but it sounds like you did the right thing.

You brought me to tears with your story. My kids (hockey, jake and tank) will get extra hugs tonight.

3

{{{{truthbot}}}}

I’ve been there, and it never is easy.

4

Dogs and I suppose cats really can become like best friends and family members. It hurts so much when they die it makes you wonder if you ever really want to go through that again. My prayers are with you and remember dogs have spirits too, at least I believe they do. You might wish to read some of these poems about dogs http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~cypert/dick/dogpoems.html

5

When we lost out beloved Dottie I found thissite. I still tear up everytime I look at it. :frowning:

6

From the same litter, and haaaated each other. I should have named them after Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine.

Lillian is Good Cat. Very sweet, affectionate, dumber than a bagful of hair.

Dorothy was Bad Cat. Also affectionate, but too damn wiley, and had a habit of balling up her fist and punching me on the nose. She died of lung cancer about two months ago (I told the damn cat to quit smoking . . .).

I miss Dorothy, but Lillian has not stopped purring. If she could dance on her grave, she would.

7

I swear, this is a message from my past. My grandma had a dog—Snooper The Wonder Poodle! Apparently he was the smartest dog on earth, almost human! They got him when most of my Dad’s siblings were still living at home, in high school or some such, and he died after I had gotten to know him pretty well. My aunt and uncle buried his ashes on my grandfather’s grave; Grandma kept his collar and tags on a nail in her kitchen for the rest of her life. Every time the family got together at some point someone said “Remember when Snooper did such and such? What a great dog!”

So yeah, it hurts now. But keep in mind after the hurt numbs away you’ll have 19 years of great **TC The Wonder Poodle ** memories to share with your whole family!

8

I am so sorry to hear about TC. You asked for pet stories, so here’s ours. Last summer I was renovating a house in a less than wonderful neighborhood. I had my 11yo daughter with me and we had stopped by just to do some finishing touches. While we were there, a kitten wandered under my car and was spotted by my daughter. He was ‘count the ribs’ skinny and somebody had whacked off his tail, put a chink in his ear and done a lot of scissor chopping to his fur. He latched onto my daughter and she refused to put him down lest he lose anything else. I was not looking for another pet and all the way home he hid in my daughters arms, occasionally looking up at me, at which point I would remark “You are soooo lucky” Since I have another cat, I quarantined little Lucky in a room till we could get him to the vet and see if he had any contagious diseases. He passed the tests and put on weight and is now a very happy member of our family. Usually when I wake up in the morning, my daughter has crawled into my bed and between her and I, all tucked under the blankets is Lucky. I wouldn’t trade him for the world.

9

singlefile, I’m extatic that you and your kitty have found each other, but please, for the love of sweet Og, change his name! I don’t even want to tell you the kinds of things I have seen happen to cats named “Lucky.” It’s just asking for trouble.
What about Steven? Never seen anything bad happen to a cat named Steven.
well, never met a cat named Steven, but guess that means I’ve never seen an injured one either :slight_smile:

10

He wasn’t feeling all that Lucky the day he was neutered, but aside from that he is the healthiest, happiest little cat I’ve ever seen. Given his lack of a tail (seems those don’t grow back) people keep telling me I should have named him Bob.

11

My psych teacher in high school had a cat named Steve.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

12

I’m so sorry for your loss. Whenever I read about someone’s dog passing I take a little extra time to pet my own standard poodle and make sure I recognize how lucky I am to have a friend like this. He makes sure we play every day, if it isn’t squirrel hunting (which I wrote about earlier today) we do our circus tricks or play basketball or just hide and find toys.
When I walk with him it’s like I have super powers. He points out the deer and the coyotes in the woods. He knows when our hiking friends are in the woods and which trail to take to find them. We find geocaches without using a GPS.
To use a term from our poodle email list, this dog is the “dog of my heart” and I’m incredibly lucky to know it while I have him.

13

Where to start, and damn you for making my old hardassed self cry.

Let’s start with Lady and her daughter Heidi. I wanted a dog as a teen and the organization that we contacted fixed us up with a female and her 9 pups. We lost two in the first days, then mom decided that teeth hurt and she was no longer nursing. Every two hours the remaining pups got cereal and love, for 6 weeks. I have never been so tired. But we pulled the seven remaining through.

We kept the mom and our favorite pup, and loved them dearly. 18 months pass, give or take.

One Friday night at about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, they both started barking like the gates of hell had opened. These were outside dogs, it was that knid of world then, and they never barked at much. But that night they would not stop. My father tried to quiet them, but they started taking turns barking, until they knew he was paying attention. Yep, they waited until they were sure they had his attention. Then they both stopped and you could hear the baby crying.

At this point it becomes a race to see who can get dressed fastest, and it’s a three way tie in about 45 seconds to pluck the 20 month old out of the road. Her only words to us sound like “Go go conico.” Cops called and the baby soothed as we start to breathe again. The road we pulled he off of has too many curves and too much danger, she was in danger of being hit every second she was out there.

Cops take kid and find folks. The story we get the next day is that Mom had promised a trip to the carnival, “Go go conico” was “gonna go to the carnival” when she woke up and snuck out past the babysitter.

So to this day I contend that those dogs saved that baby’s life. She froze when they barked and stopped her from going into the more dangerous part of the road.

I was 15 then, 35 years ago. i still miss them, Heidi who was let out of our fenced yard and hit on the road and her mom, so afraid of thunderstorms that she went through a window and bled out while I was away at college. I have been so lucky to have other canine heros as part of my life, but can only do these tonight.

Short answer is that nothing can replace them, but I thank the powers that rule the universe for my part in these dogs lives every time i remember.

14

We once had a cat named Simon. My ex had found him in a burlap sack in a parking lot. This cat loved me. He followed me around, slept with me, adored me.

We sent him off to be neutered/vacinnated and I got a call from the vet. He had feline leukemia. We had two other cats who we tested and they were negative. I hated to have him put to sleep right then, but I didn’t want our other cats to get sick.

The last time I saw the cat, I was shoving him in a cat carrier for my ex to take in.

15

I’m so sorry about TC. I cry at anything, so your story made me very teary. Cherry the Maltese and I are sending lots of hugs and kisses.

At first, it was just an everyday childish whine. “Mom, I want a dog. Please, Mom? Please, oh, please? I’ll take good care of it, Mom. Please, Mom…” Erm, stretch that out over seven and a half years. My parents don’t like animals, so they both refused.

Then came that fateful day two years and a half years ago - the day my parents gave in. I thrust a handful of classifed ads in their faces. We ended up going to only two of the listed ads because we narrowed it down to the dog’s size, age, and gender. My parents wanted a small female. The next day, my parents found another classified ad from a Maltese breeder in Collingwood (tiny town two hours away from Toronto). I called the breeder and found out that they had two boys and a girl. I asked her to “reserve” the girl until we could come and look at her.

The next day, my whole family (parents, me, younger brother) piled into the car. Imagine a thirteen-year-old absolutely giddy with excitement and bursting with joy. It’s hard to contain in such a small space like a car. Anyways, we got to Collingwood and the breeder took us to this little barn-like place behind her house. The little thing was about the size of both my palms. My parents asked all these questions about how big she’ll grow, what shots she’ll need, how much will she cost, etc., etc. Money exchanged hands and voila! Our first dog!!

We began driving back and she was shivering a little, so we put her in my brother’s very old and small hat. Amazingly, she fit inside it. Then, I took my really poofy jacket, put it in between my brother and me and placed her on the jacket. My brother and I spent the whole drive back home staring at this little creature. We stopped at Petsmart (where my mother embarrassingly nagged me to ask one of the employees there to make sure the puppy was a girl… :o ) and bought some essentials.

We got home and promptly named her Cherry. I honestly don’t know why or how we came up with this name, but we gave it to her and we’ve never called her anything else. But, she turned out to be an extremely smart dog. It only took us two days to housetrain her (or is it housebreak?). Anyways, my parents won’t admit it, but we all love her.

My dad’s the only one who lets her chase him around the house and my mother speaks in baby talk to her sometimes…

16

This past Valentine’s Day, I made an appointment to take my guinea pig (Nuku-Nuku) to the vet to see what was going on with her. That weekend she’d gone from being a normal pig to being disoriented, not wanting to eat, and generally afraid. My boyfriend took her to the vet, and I got a call within half an hour telling me that I needed to go there and make a decision about treatment. Apparently Nuku-Nuku had gotten a respiratory infection in additon to having a genetic tooth malocclusion, and with small animals like that, there’s nothing you can really do that they’ll survive. I had to put her down, and the same day I adopted my “new” guinea pig, Peebee.
Nuku was my first pet that wasn’t a “family” pet, and she was a great companion for her mental capacity. I had gotten her as a gift from my boyfriend; he had rescued her from a family that just didn’t want her anymore and didn’t take care of her. She was great as a first small animal as well; she was active but slow (her first owners didn’t cut her nails and it became a problem for her walking, so she never quite became the typical pig) and really sweet. It was definitely a joy to have a little animal that I could sit in my lap and pet/comb and feed carrots until she fell asleep (and peed like every other guinea pig).
Peebee is a bit different; a fairly typical guinea pig, he’s really active, inquisitive, chatty, and always looking for something to nibble on. Sometimes this means I’ll have to keep my fingers carefully out of his reach, but he’s not too bright so I don’t mind that he hasn’t figured out that not everything is food. He is, however, sweet and willing to cuddle for as long as his little quasi-pubescent mind/body can handle being still.

My other fur baby is a German Shepherd/Shar Pei mix named Sienna. My boyfriend had adopted her a year ago, and she’s quickly become just as spoiled, happy and playful as my guinea pig. She thinks she’s a human, and sometimes tries to be sneaky. She’s definitely smart, but she was abandoned while still on milk so she’s got some separation anxiety. Although she’s a handful at times, I wouldn’t trade having the loyal, loving and thoughtful companionship that she brings to my life. It’s like having a toddler that can’t open doors or get into troube that requires hands, without the screaming fits and the potty training.

17

A few years ago my significant other got a call from a friend asking for help catching some stray kittens. He had been feeding the kittens and their mother, but the mother had just been hit by a car so the kittens were on their own. This friend is in a wheelchair, so he couldn’t catch them by himself. They got a humane trap and caught them one by one. My SO is more of a dog person and never wanted a cat, despite my repeated requests. But who doesn’t love kittens? He decided right away to keep one. He brought home a gray and white little guy, whom we named Rasputin.

Rasputin has grown up into an unusually large and robust fellow, and everyone comments on what a beautiful animal he is. As a kitten he had a bad case of worms that made his stomach quite bloated. We took care of that, but now he has a big flap of loose skin hanging from his belly that sways when he walks. Since he was borderline feral when we got him (they say kittens have to be socialized to humans within the first month or it will never happen), he’s not great with strangers. Loves us, but strangers make him run and cower in fear. That is, they did until our vet put him on some anti-anxiety medication. Now he’s as calm and placid as can be, and not only does he let strangers pet him, but he approaches them

Shortly after we got Rasputin, we decided it would be a good idea to get him a companion, so we adopted a pretty little black longhaired girl from a local rescue organization and named her Raven. She’s the sweetest, funniest, most affectionate thing you could ever see.