I Love Lucy

It has taken me a solid week to write this post. A week to talk about my little dog without becoming a crying mess.

Let me start back at the beginning. Our little cockapoo, actually the largest and oldest of our dogs, had a dry hacking cough for a few years. It started way before we moved to Ohio and progressively got worse. No vet that we took her to could really pinpoint the problem. We just knew that after she laid down, she hacked.

Two vets in Ohio diagnosed her with a kidney disease that was to be fatal within months. Two years later, she was still very much alive and she still had the hack. After moving back to KC, we took her to our original vets office and she had an ear infection. Nothing on the hack still. Keep in mind, it wasn't our previous vet, just his office.

We then took her to a recommended vet near our house. That vet ran a battery of tests and told me she suspected Cushings, but her kidneys were perfectly fine. Additional expensive tests showed no proof of Cushings. I was told she was perfectly healthy. That was in February. I took her home, still with her hack that was getting worse and still feeling as though I had no answers.

In April, we left her with a terrible dog sitter who left her kenneled for 16-20 hours per day. When we came home, she had lost control of her bowels. Evidently a dramatic change in habits, like kenneling for lengthy periods, will cause a dog to have severe bowel distress. She couldn't hold her poop in and she was pooping everywhere without any control.

I took her to the vet closest to our house. They also ran a long list of tests, but included a series of X-rays. No vet had ever done an X-ray. The X-rays showed what they suspected. Her bowel was inflamed and about four times its normal size. She would need several days of IV meds to get rid of the inflammation and get her back to normal. It was a costly fix to the neglect she had suffered.

The tests showed several other things that had not previously been caught. She had an under active thyroid. She also had arthritis in her back and back legs. Since we weren't there for the hacking, I hadn't mentioned it. The vet did ask me if she had that problem. She then showed me on the X-ray that my little dog had an enlarged heart.

Her little heart was about 1/2 the size bigger than it should be. The vet said she should be just fine on a new heart med. So we left with three new meds after her hospital stay. Within a week, there was no improvement. I took her back and the vet added a medication and increased another. A week later, still no improvement. I took her back and they increased two medications and sent us on our way. Two weeks later, we saw improvement.

Over the next 3 1/2 months, we would see our portly little dog become skin and bones. The vet insisted the meds were doing their job and she would live for years longer as long as we kept her on the meds. The meds at this point were nine per day and running us close to $300 per month. I was going in every other week to pick up more meds. She had her own pill box so we never forgot a pill.

About three weeks ago, I noticed that she was not herself. She would sleep most of the day or at least lay nearly lifeless watching the other dogs. She would exert herself in the mornings and when my husband came home. I started asking questions about the amount of meds she was on and found that she was on a larger than human dose of lasix. Things weren't adding up. Our dog had acted like a puppy just two weeks early and could barely move now.

I took her to the vet on Monday. They again did a long list of expensive tests. They gave a steroid shot against my wishes and diagnosed her with chronic bronchitis. They said she was doing great and sent us on our way with another new med and four additional pills per day.

She wasn't ok. Her lungs were filling and she was unable to keep infection from settling into them. She had lost nearly 10 lbs in 4 months and she had gotten down to barely eating a handful of food each day.

After I took her home from the vet that day, I watched for the next two days with the looming reality that I knew my girl and could see in her eyes that the end was approaching. I am not claiming to be smarter than the vet, but I knew my girl better than they did.

By Thursday, it was clear that she had given us everything she had left in her. She was tired, done with the struggle to breathe.

I took her to her original vet on Friday morning. I gave him a detailed history like I have here and her medication doses. He examined her and gave me his opinion. He said she had been overdosed for way too long on lasix and her organs were shutting down. She had lost an additional lb in four days and her belly had become swollen. She was retaining fluid in her belly and nothing was working as it should. She was not ok. He said she was about to have a bunch of bad days with one really bad day for us all. The end was near.

She was calm, tired. I was crushed. I hated making the decision to put her down, but knew that I had done everything I could and she was in pain. I loved her so much that I had to give her that final gift.

It was the worst heartache I have felt in a few years. My heart felt ripped away, damaged and handed back to me to try to move forward.

She was our first little dog. My husband called her Pickle. We had gotten her January of 2007 and she was 10 years, 8 months and 1 day old. She had been with us through some rocky times and great times. She was the first dog we traveled with on a regular basis. She had spent time in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and probably a few I have missed. She made the move to Ohio behind the seat of my husbands truck and made it back with us last fall.

She loved fruits and veggies, often climbing onto chairs and table to get what she wanted. She was my nemesis with the garden and stole as many tomatoes as she could. She never missed a doorbell ring and her favorite time of day was when Kent came home.

She never had puppies. In fact, she only had a partial uterus that was found when we had her spayed. Every dog we had was her puppy. She loved them, but was mother hen with them. She tattled and snapped at them when they misbehaved. Before our small dogs, we had a Black Lab. Soffee was Lucys momma. She did the same thing with the tattling. I hope if dogs go to heaven that they have reunited and are waiting on us.

We had her cremated and I picked her up earlier this week. It's a tiny hand carved box and I've put her collar around it. I wanted her back with us. We don't have a place to bury her and I would rather she be buried someday with one of us. She is in the closet next to Soffee.

Lucy was like one of our children. On her last morning, I picked her up and laid her in bed with me. She snuggled close to my chest. I listened to her sometimes labored breathing and erratic heartbeat. I held her in much the same way the first night we brought her home.

It is a grieving process. Part of our family is gone. We are no longer complete. There's not a day I don't miss her. The crying fits are slowing down. We are slowly getting back into a routine, a different routine. But the emotion is still there.

I am angry with the vet. They never cared about her or me for that matter. They wanted money. And they got a lot of it from a dog who was going to die. I am angry that I had to make the choice to end her life. I am heartbroken that she is gone. I miss her bark, her big floppy ears and her precious little face.

I hope she knew how much she was loved. I hope she knows now. She is missed and will be for a long time to come. Nothing can ever take her place.