Our 6 year old lab mix died last night. I’m going to tell the story here because I think it will help me make sense of it. Be forewarned that it will be long and there will likely be some graphic content.
Baby was an inbred lab mix that we had since birth, the only one of her litter to survive. She was born with a heart defect and the vet initially didn’t think she would live more than a year. She surprised us all by living abundantly for 6 years. She was the sweetest, most mild mannered dog I have ever seen. She literally wanted nothing more than for her pack to be happy, including the human members. When I and the boy dog would play too rough for her taste, she would simpy walk over, wedge herself in between and look at us like “Hey! Play nice!”.
They had free run of the 1/2 acre back yard and basement by day, each evening we would let them upstairs to eat, socialize, snuggle (a 45 pound lap dog, she was) and sleep. She never once had an accident in the house. Considerate, you know. She was always last to the food and water bowl, much preferring to share attention with her humans first while the other dogs ate. She knew there would always be food left for her. Priorities, you know.
Last night I let her and her “brother” upstairs about 11:00, later than usual as we had been out. All was normal. She bounded up the stairs as always, right behind the other dog. He always has to be first at everything, and she didn’t mind. I then went into my bedroom on one end of the house while the doggies headed to the kitchen on the other end. Within seconds I heard my wife screaming for me to come there. I opened the bedroom door and, from all the way down the hall, could see blood all over the kitchen floor. Baby saw me and bounded down the hallway to give me some attention. Blood was literally pouring from her mouth. Not vomit, just blood freely flowing out. My first thought was that she had somehow ripped off her lower jaw. I couldn’t parse what was happening, it didn’t make sense. I have never seen that much blood before. Baby headed back up the hall and went in the living room, where they normally slept. She sat down on the rug and looked at me like “I’m tired, I think I’ll stay here”. No panic, no discernable signs of pain. Just a constant flood of blood and huffing breath like she was exhausted. I looked in the hallway to see my just turned 18 year old daughter open her bedroom door to see what was going on. What she saw was blood everywhere and her dog sitting placidly in a ever growing puddle. She put her hands over her eyes and cried. The other dog, the alpha and normally in the middle of everything, sat down on their sleeping pillow and looked on quietly. It was if he knew this was serious and he needed to stay out of the way.
I asked my wife to take over rubbing Baby’s head while I grabbed the laptop to see if I could figure out anything. A pointless exercise if ever I’ve seen one, but I felt I had to do something. In reality, there wasn’t anything anyone could have done. I think we all knew that. Before I could Google “Dog bleeding profusely from mouth”, Baby laid down…and died.
The whole thing took 10, maybe 15 minutes. Before that all had been completely normal. Now Baby was dead and the house looked like the scene of a gruesome mass murder. There were large puddles of blood in the kitchen, all up and down the hall and in the living room. It was on the walls and doors. There was so much on the rug that it had run through to the floor underneath. My wife, in shock, said “I don’t even know where to start”.
I knew where I had to start. I had to bury Baby. I got on some old clothes and went to round up my shovel. It was nowhere to be found. I asked my wife and she remembered that my other daughter had borrowed it to do some gardening at her house. That left me with a mattock, a pair of post hole diggers, and a large metal dustpan. Not exactly the ideal tools with which to dig a large hole, but the job had to be done. Putting it off was not an option. Break up the earth (and cut the roots - so many roots) with the mattock and post hole diggers, then scoop the loose earth into the dustpan and pile it to the side. Repeat until the hole is large enough. She didn’t seem quite so heavy when she was alive. They never do.
I got that done, then joined my wife in cleaning up the inside of the house. After what seemed forever things look normal again, except the rug is missing from the living room. It was not salvagable. Things aren’t normal, though, and won’t be for a while. Our other dog seems to sense that, too. Not so much tail wagging since last night.
I am not a doctor and I am not a veterinarian. My best guess is a massive aneurysm of some kind. Maybe her defective heart exploded. I know mine doesn’t feel so good right now.
