Goodbye

I was hoping to be back with a happy post soon, but I guess that's not going to happen this week.

Our 23 year old shi-tzu, The Doodles, passed away on Friday.



It wasn't a huge surprise. She had congestive heart failure, and wasn't doing well.

We'd tried her on a new medication that last week and she'd rallied for a few days, bouncing around like her old self at least a couple of times a day. So I'm glad she had a few good days at the end there.



But it gave me a false sense of how much time we had left with her. So when she went from bouncing around happier than I'd seen her in months to not really able to settle anywhere and get comfortable over the course of a few hours, it was doubly hard to watch.

At least she passed in her sleep, here at home, and not at the emergency vet needing to be put down after days of medical tests and interventions, like my last two dogs.

I feel like I should have done more, and at the same time like she was saved from my needing to do more. Because really, it would have been for me, not her. I'm never going to feel like I did enough unless they come out the other side alive and well. Which wasn't an option at her age, in her condition.




I'd always preferred the big goofy dogs to the itty bitty ones. The tiny dogs I'd known had been yappy, cranky bullies inclined to bite and nip. If I were forced to be honest, I'd have to admit our Doodles would never have passed one of those doggy IQ tests. But she was by far the sweetest dog, not a mean bone in her body.

We'll miss her.