This morning I took my boy to the vets because he was grunting whilst breathing and finding it very difficult to go to the toilet. The vet told me that he had a growth on his prostate and it was blocking his ability to pass freely. Having discussed the options for his health care it was decided that he was too old (13 and a half) to live through the various operations and medications he would have had to endure. So, we decided that it would be best for him to be put to sleep. At 9:30am he was given an overdose of anaesthetic and went to sleep so peacefully and with the people he loved the most around him.
I thought that I would take this opportunity to talk through some of the funny moments that we have had with our dog Homer.
We picked him up in September/October 1999, he was only four weeks old and had to be taken that young because his previous owner was not looking after him properly. At four weeks old she was feeding him weetabix instead of his mothers milk.
As soon as we got him home it was obvious that he was full of life, energy and will power. He was so determined to do new things, we lived in a flat at the time and he could not walk down the stairs. It was like his legs weren’t connected to his brain, so I had to sit on the stairs with him and teach him how to walk down them by putting one paw in front of the others. He was concentrating so much, he just wanted to be able to do it.
From then, we knew that he was going to provide us so much joy over his life.
Over the next couple of weeks I will add some more stories of our boy and fun we had.
As much as this morning will replay in your mind, try to fight that recording with these better memories. I can’t say the pain and sadness goes away; it doesn’t. Two and a half yar later after we had a similar ‘occasion’ with Ophelia, it still hurts. But, as the saying goes, time heals, or at least, helps. I’m glad I got to meet him
Thank you Victoria.