Woodlands Sweet Apple Cider - October 18, 1997 - November 12, 2012 (Sweetie)
Still young and healthy
I
lost my 15+ year old Sweetie dog. She was out of my first corgi litter
and lived here for her forever life. Although there are still 4
children and grandchildren with me, her passing has made a hole in my
heart and house. Although she was
very sweet with people, she was quite tough with other dogs and ruled
the roost till the day she left us. She always made her little bark
when people came to visit so that they would come and pet her first.
Sweetie
was out of my first Pembroke litter. She goes back to the Shaferhaus
lines. She had one litter, and her daughter Deedee is still with me at
age 12. Deedee has not been DNA'd for DM, but is still moving well and
able to do her walkies in the park. Sweetie did some conformation shows
and had some points, but I decided that she was not really going to
finish her championship title. On top of that, she was NOT willing to
learn obedience…stubborn should have been her second name! So she lived
her fifteen years as a good companion and guarded the house and yard
against chipmunks.
To
the best of my memory, Sweetie started to show obvious signs of DM
around the summer of 2010. I had her tested January 18, 2011 and she
came up At Risk. On 4/9/2011 I got her a cart and some time before that
her WalkAbout - size Small/Medium from Scout's House. She could use
her cart until beginning 2012, and then only her walkabout.
9-7-11
Sweetie
was my "bed" dog, but she could no longer jump up. I used to call her
the "Pillow Queen" because she would sleep next to me right on top of a
pillow. She knew how to make herself comfy. I loved having her
company.
When
she became urine incontinent (25mg Proin helped), she slept in a large
wire crate in the bedroom, along with the other girls. It was not long
till she just could not make it up the steps by herself, so she wore her
walkabout for the staircase and up we went together….going down in the
morning was always exciting as I had to make sure she did not tumble
down the steps. The walkabout was necessary going down also. It seems I
spent a lot of time, putting on the walkabout and taking it off! At
that time I told myself when she could no longer pull herself upstairs
(with my help, of course) I would put her down. But that is not how it
went. Although she was "planted", she still seemed to have a will to
live and enjoy life as it became for her. She could still be in the dog
yard watching what was going on and snoozing in the sun.
She
never complained about her unlucky lot in life. For a while she
managed to scoot around. I did get her booties to save her rear paws
from scrapes. She liked her cart and had no problems from the get go.
She knew to bark for me if she got stuck somewhere, which happened
often. We could only use her cart outdoors as my house has too many
steps.
2-1-12 - probably around the last time she could use her cart. Luckily, a mild winter.
Sometime
in spring/summer of 2012, she lost all use of her legs. About the most
she could do was a little rotation to turn around. Instead of upstairs
at night, she slept on a nice comfy bed in the kitchen with the boys.
She only complained for a couple of nights….."wait! you forgot about
me!" But she quickly adjusted. During the day, she was in the groom
room, or sunning herself outside. Evenings she spent in the family room
with us, enjoying her popcorn. She became totality incontinent and
started to develop UTI's, even though I expressed her as often as I
could. I got her Huggies diapers, size 5, which where a God Send! I
also bought hospital wee wee pads on EBAY. I never had to express
poop….it just fell out.
It
was when family would exclaim how awful she was looking that I began to
think the time is coming. Although her eyes were bright, mind good,
appetite good, she had lost a lot of weight and I would see her
shivering a lot. She had a huge cyst/tumor on her tummy. And she
started getting blood in her urine even though treated for UTI. Sweetie
was a strong minded, cantankerous girl to the very end. We will all
miss her presence. I cannot say that DM killed her….I believe that age
was a factor and that something else was going on.
How
did DM affect my life? I became a care taker, always worried about
leaving for too long. I know that down the line, one of my dogs may
come down with DM and at this point I would say, never again. I cannot
go through this again. But who knows, when it actually occurs, just how
I would feel then. The big difficulty with DM is the fact that the
dogs don't seem to complain. They still have light in their eyes and
expectations of good things to come. So we become their care takers
with love in our hearts and grieve when they have to leave us.
Run free, my Sweetie. Chase those chipmunks at the Bridge.
At the end…..my pretty old girlie
