24/10/2002 - Entry #35
Anybody remember the picture I put up of my dogs? If not, here it is again. The one on the left was called Mitzi, and she died last night. She was 15 years old, which is a good innings by anyone's standards, I guess. Apparently she was absolutely fine on Sunday, but on Monday didn't want to get out of her bed, even to eat. My mum held the bowl of food in front of her face, but she still only ate a little bit, more to keep everyone happy than because she wanted to, I think. By Tuesday she could barely move a muscle, and they took her to the vets. They found a huge growth in her abdomen, which the vet thought might be her liver or spleen becoming tumourous and swollen. She said there was a very faint chance it was treatable, but would require X-rays, blood tests and exploratory operations. Mum decided she didn't deserve to be cut up on such a slim possibility, and after 15 years, they decided to let her go peacefully. They brought her home and put her bed in front of the fireplace, which all the animals love sleeping in front of. They pampered her and made her as comfortable as possible, and she just drifted off to sleep with everyone around her. I wasn't invited.
When she was just a puppy, she was abused by her owners. They kept her in a travel cage without enough room to turn around in, and very rarely let her out. She was saved by the National Canine Defence League, who I'm a great supporter of, and then adopted by us. When we first got her, she bizarrely drooled whenever she was inside a car. I still have no idea why, but she decided to stop doing that after a couple of months. She had dozens of little quirks like that. She slept upside down, for one. She always tried to copy everybody's grins, too. Whenever the whole family were laughing, she'd bare her teeth and wag her tail. She regularly gave up her bed for one of the cats to sleep in, and I'm fairly positive her favourite food was grass.
I'll miss her.
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