Our Sheltie Passed Away

I'm too lazy to hunt for a photo of her.   Our dog of 10 years, Tillie, got sick and died this week.  I noticed she wasn't feeling well on Monday afternoon, but I had to go make pb&j sandwiches for work camp and then babysit D that night while V was in class.  Tuesday I had to deliver the sandwiches to the work camp site about 2 hours from here.  I then did shower security duty (when the girls get back from the work site they shower before dinner).  I didn't get back home until after 9:00 p.m.  Tillie had had bad diarrhea.  I thought, oh gosh, I have to clean her off before I can take her to the vet.  But Wednesday I woke up with a terrible migraine.  I was completely out of commission all day.  She was acting pretty sick.

So then Thursday morning I managed to trim and bathe her.  She seemed better after that.  She ate a little raw ground beef.  So I thought, I think she's on the mend and didn't take her to the vet.

Friday morning I had another appointment in the a.m. and then I had to make cole slaw for the potluck return home dinner for the work campers.  Josh was home from work on Friday.  He came downstairs iin the afternoon, took one look at Tillie and announced he was taking her to the vet.  She had had a little water that morning but she was barely moving.

The vet told Josh Tillie was basically dying.  It looked to him like she was in kidney failure.  But it could be bladder or kidney stones so he wanted to x-ray her.  Well they did and there were no stones and she was definitely in kidney failure.  Saturday morning I woke with another migraine.  We had the garden planning guy here and I couldn't even meet with him, but after he left I felt well enough that we went to the vet's and they basically told us to say good bye to Tillie.  We could take her home with us but she only had hours left and she'd probably start having seizures soon.  She looked terrible.  So miserable and bloated looking and she smelled really bad. Basically she was being poisoned to death by her own toxins.  So we said please put her out of her misery.  We didn't want to watch.  We said goodbye.  I struggled very hard not to lose it.  R was the same.

I am still in shock.  I've got this darn cat here who is slowly dying.  I thought she'd be the next pet to go after Milky died of a stroke last year.   We asked the vet if we had taken Tillie in earlier, if she would have survived.  I felt so guilty that I had been so preoccupied all week.  She said she doubted it.  When they did the x-rays her kidneys were unusually small.  She thought that maybe her kidneys had been functioning only partially to begin with and then something happened that put her over the edge.  And dogs can't handle kidney failure the way cats can.  They just go into rapid decline.

I know I need to clean up everything.  Her dish is still there, her leash is still out.  I've still got the dog shampoo in my shower.  There's open cans of dog food in the fridge.  I have a big case of cans of libby's pumpkin, I would supplement her food with.  What to do with that?

R is grilling Sunday dinner.  Tillie used to get so excited when he did that and follow him in and out, in and out.

Poor Tillie.