Happy New Year!
It's been a while, hope everyone is doing well! I normally update at work, but the few weeks before vacation I've been busy scrambling to make my goals on updating our website, which is looking better and better every day. I got a whole bunch of stuff up there now. Work is ok otherwise, boss hasn't been too annoying lately.
I'm still on vacation until the 3rd while Justin is visiting his family in Florida. We had a nice family trip to Vail, but the day we came back, we had to put our dog down and it's really put a damper on things.
The day my parents left for vacation, they noticed that his legs had been giving out. He would lose control of his back legs, then be able to hobble around a bit, then lose control again. The same thing happened to our first dog, Weisse. The condition is called spinal myelopathy. Weisse started suffering from symptoms when he was around 9 or 10 years old, and then was able to live with the condition until he totally lost control of his back legs when he was 13 and was put down. The difference with Burns was night and day... literally one minute he was playing in the back yard, and the next he couldn't walk anymore.
We picked up up from the kennel and his breeder said he was doing very badly. He was turned around in the kennel and my dad called to him. He didn't respond at first, but then tried to make his way to us by dragging his legs . He could barely turn around. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen and the image will stay with me for the rest of my life. He couldn't hold his urine and peed all over dad. I knew we had to put him down, so we immediately went to the vet. Burns was 10 years old, which is on the lower side of his life expectancy as a German Shepherd. I think Weisse made it to 13 years because he was way smaller, about half the size of Burns.
Burns was a mean dog, but we loved him very much. He had 4 biting incidents, one of which caused my family 1000 dollars. He had a very good life, because if he were in any other family, he may have been put down. He was fed two special meals a day consisting of raw meat and vegetables prepared and until his sudden disease, he was healthy. He was walked twice a day every day and while he was kind of lazy, he was doted on a lot and really had a great life. My parents took great care of him and would always call on my grandma to take care of him while they were on vacation. He was rarely kenneled except for this last trip because for part of it we visited grandma in Colorado.
I think this is the most recent photo of Burns and dad
His favorite thing to do was to play in the back yard
For the longest time , he used to attend German Shepherd socialization class every weekend. It did nothing to make him more social lol. He kind of just tolerated the other dogs in the class. My parents made friends with a few of the owners. A couple are coming over today for New Year's dinner.
He was a very cute puppy. It's crazy that it's been 10 years, but we thought we would have at least a couple more.
I'm still on vacation until the 3rd while Justin is visiting his family in Florida. We had a nice family trip to Vail, but the day we came back, we had to put our dog down and it's really put a damper on things.
The day my parents left for vacation, they noticed that his legs had been giving out. He would lose control of his back legs, then be able to hobble around a bit, then lose control again. The same thing happened to our first dog, Weisse. The condition is called spinal myelopathy. Weisse started suffering from symptoms when he was around 9 or 10 years old, and then was able to live with the condition until he totally lost control of his back legs when he was 13 and was put down. The difference with Burns was night and day... literally one minute he was playing in the back yard, and the next he couldn't walk anymore.
We picked up up from the kennel and his breeder said he was doing very badly. He was turned around in the kennel and my dad called to him. He didn't respond at first, but then tried to make his way to us by dragging his legs . He could barely turn around. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen and the image will stay with me for the rest of my life. He couldn't hold his urine and peed all over dad. I knew we had to put him down, so we immediately went to the vet. Burns was 10 years old, which is on the lower side of his life expectancy as a German Shepherd. I think Weisse made it to 13 years because he was way smaller, about half the size of Burns.
Burns was a mean dog, but we loved him very much. He had 4 biting incidents, one of which caused my family 1000 dollars. He had a very good life, because if he were in any other family, he may have been put down. He was fed two special meals a day consisting of raw meat and vegetables prepared and until his sudden disease, he was healthy. He was walked twice a day every day and while he was kind of lazy, he was doted on a lot and really had a great life. My parents took great care of him and would always call on my grandma to take care of him while they were on vacation. He was rarely kenneled except for this last trip because for part of it we visited grandma in Colorado.
I think this is the most recent photo of Burns and dad
His favorite thing to do was to play in the back yard
For the longest time , he used to attend German Shepherd socialization class every weekend. It did nothing to make him more social lol. He kind of just tolerated the other dogs in the class. My parents made friends with a few of the owners. A couple are coming over today for New Year's dinner.
He was a very cute puppy. It's crazy that it's been 10 years, but we thought we would have at least a couple more.