Grief stricken

It is with great sadness that I must announce the passing of a dear friend. Today our wonderful companion of 10 years, Scooby Doo, will leave us. His life, of late, has been difficult. He has had to deal with hip and elbow dysplasia, degenerative disc disease (and one operation to relieve compression of the spinal cord caused by this), arthritis, recurring superficial pyoderma, and a non-specific allergy giving him a drippy nose and gummy eyes. Add to that the suspicion of chronic degenerative retinal myelopathy (look up CDRM online to find out how much fun that is), which can't be definitively diagnosed pre-mortem.

I think it's 10 years ago next week since I fetched this bundle of fluff from a local breeder. He instantly settled in, hardly crying at all at night. However we soon realised that he was easily bored and tended towards destruction if not supervised. He was also very sociable and thought that everyone loved him and was his friend. Somehow he worked out how to open the door on our 6 foot upright freezer, the one with the killer vacuum door seal that we need two hands to open. So everytime I went out I would come back to a freezer full of semi defrosted food. A dog crate cured that.

Scooby was loved by most who met him. After all, not everyone is impressed by a large German Shepherd coming bounding over to say "Hello!". Yes we went to training, but that was the one thing we couldn't break the habit of. He loved running around and catching his frisbee or ball. He enjoyed playing tag and hide and seek with the kids, and was ecstatic when the hose was turned on. He learnt new tricks very easily, loving the thinking involved as much as the action.

In recent years his health issues caught up with him. Since New Year this year he has had difficulty controlling his back legs. We were hopeful that, as in previous occasions, it would right itself after a period of rest. Sadly this was not to be.

On Monday of this week I took him to the vets, using the car for a journey of less than a quarter of a mile. He managed to half fall off the ramp out of the car, reversed back into the boot and refused to budge. The vet came out to see him and make sure there was no obvious damage. Then we had 'that talk' about how we were counting in days and maybe weeks, rather than weeks to months. I crossed my fingers and hoped that once again he would prove her wrong. Last may the vet had predicted that making his birthday in October would be pushing it and Christmas was really hoping. My boy proved her wrong then but not this time.

Yesterday he seemed to get worse but I put it down to jarring himself the previous day. Today he cannot walk at all. His back legs won't hold him up and he can just about manage to stagger/drag himself a couple of feet before it becomes too much effort. He has eaten his food wherever he is lying, but has now stopped accepting liquids. He hasn't been outside for toiletting since 6.15 this morning. He is just about managing to roll from one side to the other, by the radiator 'cos it's warmer. It is time!

By 6.15 this evening he will be chasing around that big field in the sky, pain-free and with all the stamina in the world. We will be grief-stricken to lose an amazing friend. Goodbye my gentle giant!

Scooby Doo

R.I.P.

28/10/98 - 21/01/09