All Dogs Go to Heaven
I haven't posted for a long time, and I wish I were posting for better reasons.
We had to put Moose down just before midnight tonight.
He had at minimum a bowel obstruction, probable sepsis, and possible other complications. Rather than put him through major abdominal surgery, where in the best case his recovery would be complicated by his increasing arthritis (he hasn't always had full use of his hind end in the last year, and the muscles there have been atrophying), we decided to euthanize him. It was a very hard call; both of us would have preferred surgery if we felt that we could give him any more good time. But we thought that the rest of his time even if it was something very simple would be bad, and he was in pain, and it wasn't clear he would even survive the surgery itself.
We were with him when he was put to sleep, and it really was very quick and very quiet.
He was a very good dog, and we will miss him very much, and we are very sorry to see him go. But after how hard his recovery was from the last surgery two years ago, we didn't think he could go through that again in his current condition. We are glad that he had those two years after the cancer -- the first three months especially were very rough, but he recovered well and had a happy time, especially after Jack joined us -- Jack not only got Moose to exercise more, but as he started going deaf, Jack took it upon himself to go get Moose whenever anything interesting was happening that Moose didn't notice. We wish we could have given Moose another two years.
We don't know when he was born, because we found him at the SPCA. That wasn't his first great escape, but it was the first he made with us. We knew when we got him that he was a giant breed, and that we would only have so long with him. We've done our best to appreciate every year, and to look at his many joys instead of his increasing age.
We had to put Moose down just before midnight tonight.
He had at minimum a bowel obstruction, probable sepsis, and possible other complications. Rather than put him through major abdominal surgery, where in the best case his recovery would be complicated by his increasing arthritis (he hasn't always had full use of his hind end in the last year, and the muscles there have been atrophying), we decided to euthanize him. It was a very hard call; both of us would have preferred surgery if we felt that we could give him any more good time. But we thought that the rest of his time even if it was something very simple would be bad, and he was in pain, and it wasn't clear he would even survive the surgery itself.
We were with him when he was put to sleep, and it really was very quick and very quiet.
He was a very good dog, and we will miss him very much, and we are very sorry to see him go. But after how hard his recovery was from the last surgery two years ago, we didn't think he could go through that again in his current condition. We are glad that he had those two years after the cancer -- the first three months especially were very rough, but he recovered well and had a happy time, especially after Jack joined us -- Jack not only got Moose to exercise more, but as he started going deaf, Jack took it upon himself to go get Moose whenever anything interesting was happening that Moose didn't notice. We wish we could have given Moose another two years.
We don't know when he was born, because we found him at the SPCA. That wasn't his first great escape, but it was the first he made with us. We knew when we got him that he was a giant breed, and that we would only have so long with him. We've done our best to appreciate every year, and to look at his many joys instead of his increasing age.