Dogs went to day care today. Approximately 9+ hours. They come home and immediately want to begin playing.
After dinner, Peryn & Volos headed straight to the basement to play their little "games" or whatever it is they do..bark at one another.
Lada--I bought a small shooter to use upstairs ( I got tired of touching wet balls). Unfortunately it takes the small tennis balls. SO we begin to play with that. She immediately loses one ball. Finds the other and then Volos comes flying back upstairs because he's decided he LOVES this new blaster.
So both of them are fighting for the balls. He takes the one squeaky one and I find one of the originals that came with the blaster.
However this ball is dead. Broken open, felt peeling off, & the blaster will barely hold it. SO begins the shooting of the orange "ball" that they fight over. If Volos gets it, Lada then runs to the basement in search of the yellow squeaky one. If Lada gets it, it's clash of the...errrrr it's a rumble.
Meanwhile, Peryn is in the basement doing....whatever... I can't tell you what because he's not making a sound. He's not rolling his herding ball nor is he holding a squeaky toy. So who the heck knows what he's doing.
Lada comes back over to me, expecting me to shoot off a ball, but she's failed to bring me back one. SO I have nothing to shoot....well I do but I don't want to open those balls yet. We get up and go to look where one is. Volos is sitting there at the entrance of my office and just breathing hard staring at the steps....why? NO Clue.
Lada then runs to the basement to look for the ball which is actually in Rich's office.
More running around and I get the ball back.
Shoot it off and then nothing. Silence. I look down, Lada is waiting for me to shoot off a non-existent ball. I head to the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs, standing and looking up is Volos. He comes flying upstairs and then Peryn pops his head around the corner to let me know he exists.
Currently all 3 are sitting around me in the living room. Peryn whining at me for....I have no idea. Lada keeps pawing the blaster. Volos nudged the blaster. I'm trying to tell them I need a ball to shoot. They aren't getting it.....
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| Her last day |
She didn't go down like Galen, Goldberg, or Duchess. She struggled to breathe at the end. It was a bit traumatic for me as it was very reminiscent of my father's passing.
It's just hard.
We never realized how much of our lives was devoted to her. I'll give you an overview.
Waking up in the am, I would let the pups out to go bathroom. *IF* she was up, I'd have to go pick her up and carry her outside. I'd have to stand out there and hold her rear up by the harness and wait for her to pee or poop. Sometimes it was quick other times I would have to move her around to get the right "spot" in order for her to go.
I'd bring her back in and place her on the bed in either the living room or my office. It depended what time I got up (4 or 5) and what room I was in.
If she had soiled the bed, I would have to go take care of that.
I would then hand out their brush chews. If I was in the living room, I would pick her up and carry her into my office. If we were already there..no biggie.
Rich would get up about 6:15 and come check on her status. Sometimes we took her back out other times she was fine. He would then go and prepare her morning pills.
I would then get up and retrieve her bowl and fill it up with water and food.
If the others were hyper and running around, Athena would be barking at them as they did so. If not, they all laid there.. Usually Lada curled up beside Athena.
Eventually Rich would take the pups to day care and so would begin the day of Athena & I from home. She would take naps, but darn if that girl did not have a 6th sense of my leaving the room. I'd pop back in and there she was up awaiting for me.
Most days she was pretty chill. Other days she would we very agitated. It was on those days that I would take her out multiple times to make sure she went. She HATED going and sitting in it.
If I ever left the room for more that 10 minutes, she'd begin barking . She wanted me to know she wanted to be with me.
Most of the time our days would be boring. WHen I went to lunch, I'd bring her in the living room while I made lunch in the kitchen. I'd bring her back to the office when done.
I'd get off work at 2:30 and once more we'd take a bathroom break. I would then bring her back in to either the office , living room, or bedroom depending on what I had to do.
A lot of times I'd get on the floor next to her and cuddle with her. SHe loved being cuddled or hugged.
On really nice days, I'd put her at the back door to watch people walk by. She loved watching out the window.
I'd start dinner and she would watch me from her bed. WHen the other cames home she would get so happy. Oftentimes she'd lift her front up and swivel around to watch them come in.
After diinner was her cuddle time with Daddy. Rich would get on the floor in front of the couch and just pet her. She loved to place her head on his leg. The other crazies would run around and she would bark at them. She loved her pack.
At 8 it'd be bedtime and we'd take her out one last time, she'd get her pills, and we'd set her up in bed. Her nighttime treat was ice cubes in her water. She loved to gnaw on them.
Now often during all of this she would soil her bedding and we'd have to wash it. SO there was an awful lot of bed changing.
On non-daycare days I made it a habit to take them all out or down to the basement at lunch to let them play. She'd get 20 mins of cart and running time. Sometimes I couldn't do it and it would just be a change of rooms while I prepped lunch.
AFTER work on non-day care days they definitely got Mommy time. I'd take Athena out and when I brought her back in, put her in her cart. The dogs got excited because they knew that meant play time. Even Athena did.
We'd either go outside or to the basement. There she would roll around chasing after Peryn & Lada with their ball. If it was the basement, she would always pee while in her cart and I ended up cleaning up the floor while they played.
She LIVED for this time. SO depending on how she was feeling and what I had going on , we'd be down there for 45 mins to an hour and a half. I may have had things to do, but I let them go. I knew this wouldn't last long. Athena playing with her siblings.
I also used this time as a gauge on how her disease progressed.
After play we'd come upstairs and I'd place her on the bed in the living room.
The rest of the evening proceeded like day care days.
Caring for her became such a part of our day to day life, we never realized just how much we did until we weren't doing it. It felt wrong and empty at first.
We're relieved that she's not miserable anymore and that we don't have to wash bedding day in and out, but I would happily put up with that to have her back with me---healthy at least.
The others? Now sure. It is only this week that Lada has gone back to lying on the beds where Athena laid. She had avoided them since that day...so I don't know if that means she's accepted it & is coming to terms with it or if I am reading too much into it.
THank you for all the messages and gifts we received. Each and every one meant the world to us. That you guys know what she meant to us.
So that's pretty much it for now. The pack and their crazy antics and the hole that Athena left....... Until next time.
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| See her spine? She lost so much muscle mass |
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| Closer look at her spine. See her bald spot |
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