Dog passed a few weeks ago.

I can finally write about it here. Hurt like hell and yeah, I cried every day for a week.



Meet Max. A big ole goofball who was 11 years old. I took him in October last year when an elderly couple got sick and could no longer take care of him. The husband died a month later as it was.

He was a broken dog but he had the biggest heart. Breeding was so bad you could even see the cartilage of his actual tail. He was deaf. Had a low thyroid. He developed ulcers in each eye and I spent months fighting those. There were huge growths on his skin. He walked with a real bad limp on his front leg because his arthritis was so bad. However, there was on blessing. He didn't have the heart problems common to his breed, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The lug nut was heart murmur free for all of his life.

He never whined and if he hadn't barked once at a cat, I would have thought the mutt was mute. Max might have been deaf and later half-blind but we communicated just fine. He only had one goal in life, to be around his owner as much as caninely possible. He hobbled around the house looking for me if he didn't know where I was.

He discovered he loved to ride in the car and got to ride almost every day. He learned where all the tasty drive-thru windows are in the Jackson metro area: banks, coffee shops, pharmacies, and Backyard Burgers. The chow hound eventually started recognizing them and went bonkers when I would pull up to their window. Yes, he recognized which drive'thru's gave treats and which ones didn't. He was a pretty smart dog and was still learning new tricks.

For example, the sliding patio door had no doggie door. No problem. Max created his own in the screen. Just pushed his way through the corner and voila, doggie door. It turns out Max was smarter than me (that's not saying much) as I didn't fix the screen because it turned out to be pretty convenient. The mutt would simply go outside as needed and then come right back inside. Good boy. The other dog saw it and figured it out too.

He actually enjoyed going to the vet (which was too often) and liked a good bath.

Sadly, he developed a GI virus one weekend. The symptoms didn't fully manifest themselves until Sunday evening. I took him in first thing Monday morning. He had an infection, the blood sugar shot up to 700 (he wasn't diabetic), and the increased blood sugar hit the kidneys hard. The blood sugar and infection got under control within two days but it was too late. The kidneys shut down and his body finally gave out Thursday night.

That Thursday was hard as well. The doc texted me and said we needed to look at putting him down. I went up there and spent over 2 hours with him. His breath reeked of ammonia. However, he started getting more active after an hour. He tried to stand a few times and wasn't as lethargic as before. I held his paws and he would push off of them to stand himself up. he was holding his head up and looking around, a big improvement. I had them run his bloodwork again. The kidneys were down to 66. Friggin miracle. Vet said he could not recommend putting him down. Left at 5:30 and figured I would come back the next morning when the doors opened at 7:30.

Here he is that afternoon. Youtube

Phone text alert sounded at 6. I didn't even look. I knew what it was. He passed during the night. He was a really good boy. He tried so hard. Never seen a dog push back death like that before. He was my boy.