Over the past few days, our dog, Julia, who we had to leave in the mid-west with my mom, has been very ill. At the beginning of the week her back legs just suddenly failed. She couldn’t get up. My mom took her in to the vet and they ran a bunch of tests. Everything looked good except her white cell count was very high, so her body was clearly fighting off some kind of infection. The vet (who we just love) put her on three different antibiotics hoping to kill off whatever it was. And for several days things seemed great. She was up and moving around some again. Her appetite was good. She was barking at the front door. Then all of a sudden on Friday she regressed. Badly. She couldn’t get up and she was just moaning. I’d been talking to mom every night to get updates on her. We even did a few video iChats so I could see her and she could hear my voice. My mom and brother took her in this morning fearing the worst. The doctors still have no idea what hit her. But everyone agrees that she was suffering and that walking had become a difficulty so they made the decision to put her to sleep.
I don’t have many pictures of her as she was afraid of cameras. See, in Julia’s brain it goes something like this:
Camera = flash = lightning = thunder = RUN AWAY!!
But I have a few pictures. This is from the last time we saw her, at my mom’s place:
This is Julia, at our old house, doing what she did best (pretending to ignore me):
Ugh, I’m going to go back to crying and sniffling some more I think. Thanks everyone for the virtual hugs!
She was a good dog. You did a good thing bringing her into your home and caring for her.
Ah Kim I’m so sorry about Julia. You guys gave her a great life and she’ll be waiting happily for you at the Rainbow Bridge. http://www.rainbowbridge.com/Poem.htm
Aw – sorry you couldn’t be with Julia this week – my lab’s back legs gave out on him too, it was a hard thing to watch – she was a good dog
Thanks all. We looked into flying me home but the speed combined with the weather made it impossible. They still aren’t sure what happened to her as the X-Rays and everything came back ok but she’s not in pain now and we’re so glad we adopted her.