Painful losses and new beginnings

This is the very first blog I have ever had and it is a heady experience. My computer-saavy sister has one. My son has one. My niece has one. Now I have one. Yippee! But yikes, too. You open yourself up and it's a bit scarey.

But that's what I'm about to do. Open myself up, starting with a painful loss. One week ago, my beloved German Shepherd Dog got sick. I thought that, despite our best efforts to keep things safe, he had gotten into the kitty litter (dogs can be so gross). It's that new clumping clay, and we thought perhaps it was clumping in his gut. When he did not get better in a day, I took him to the vet and asked the doctor to give him something to make him better...a sort of doggy laxative. The vet did a physical examination and said he felt something, but he wasn't sure what it was. He took Xrays and came back with bad news. Our beautiful dog had what the vet said was an aggressive "hemangiosarcoma of the spleen." The growth appeared to be bigger than a grapefruit on the Xray. I could hardly hear what he was telling me. All I knew was that one day Ziggy was outside running with me and playing the stick game, so athletic and beautiful and loving. Then, suddenly, he was too sick to do anything, and unlikely to get better. Our biggest concern was that the growth could rupture at any time and kill him. I left him at the vet to be rehydrated and medicated while we figured out what to do. I did two and a half hours of research on line and realized just how severe the disease is. The prognosis was not good, even with surgery and chemo and any heroic measures you could think of. My gorgeous Ziggy was already almost 10 years old (albeit young at heart), and he would have spent several months recovering from surgery (I have no doubt that he would recover from surgery, despite the "geriatric" nomenclature) and then the cancer would more likely than not return within six months or so. I read so many stories of people who had done everything they could imagine, but there is no cure, just the possibility of a little more time. The outlook was so grim that my husband and I made the decision to let go of our sweet dog. It would not be fair to put him through any more. Sunday morning, I spent 45 minutes with him, giving him a full body massage (his favorite), and a head massage, and kisses and hugs (fighting tears all the while), and then told the vet we needed to do this before my heart broke in two. And it did break. My friend, Tracy, told me the best time to let him go was while he was still feeling good. But to me, I felt like I was betraying him. My head, my intellect, said it was the right thing to do, my heart said I was throwing him away. I had to do this alone because my husband was away for the week at training, returning this coming Monday. I was ok by myself, actually, as I didn't need any witnesses to my grief, and I didn't want to worry about how others were feeling about it all. But I did seem to come unglued when the vet said "he's gone." Wow! I hope I don't have to go through THAT again any time too soon.

Then, I came home to a quiet house. No big smiling face to greet me. No big bat-wing ears. No wag, wag, wag and happy bark. I miss him so much, and I am reminded each day of this wonderful missing soul. The cats are bereft. Daily Mews misses his constant companion. This morning he heard Wolfie in another room and ran in on his toes, expecting to see Ziggy. When he did not, his body visibly shrunk in disappointment. He looked at the back door, hoping, then came to me and meowed. He did not have to speak English for me to understand what had just happened. It was clear.

I think I have come to the conclusion that I need another German Shepherd Dog in my life. My sister went through a similar experience with her Persian cat. The cat was fine one day, then gravely ill the next, and gone the next. She needed to fill that hole and went on line to find another little cat. It's terribly lonely to lose a little buddy. I did the same thing. Mostly, I was trying to learn more about the disease that took Ziggy, but I stumbled upon the German Shepherd rescue website and started looking at the dogs' photos and reading about them. And one of them spoke to me. A female named Kira, who seems to come from the same bloodlines as Ziggy. She is an athletic looking sable colored GSD with the same physique as Zig, only a little smaller. I haven't been able to get her out of my mind. So I sent my husband a text message (he's out of town, training, until Monday), asking: "Would you be opposed to a female shepherd as our next dog? Just asking." He called me and said "No, not at all; why? What did you find?" He knows me too well! He agrees with me. We need another GSD. And even though I know I will have to say goodbye again someday, I really think I have a lot of love to give another dog.

I have started the process. I talked to Kira's "mom" this afternoon and learned more about her. She sounds like a really good match for us. So I'm going to meet her tomorrow afternoon and see what happens. I have told myself not to get too excited about her, that it may not work out. We'll see. I'll write tomorrow night, describing the meeting.