And I have to let her go.

Goodnight, princess, originally uploaded by toddlyons.

It’s been a long time coming, but somehow that doesn’t make the realization any easier.

Our vet diagnosed her with a heart murmur in January of 2008 and told us she might live another 3 to 6 months.  That was over 3½ years ago.  Now at nearly age 14, she’s lived much longer than I dared to pray she might.  For some time, I’ve actually been praying that the end would come peacefully, with nature’s help, without necessitating this awful choice from me and mine.

Since 2008, we’ve treated every spring and every summer as if it were her last. We’ve continued her treatment faithfully, watching her body slow down considerably while her mind stayed as sharp as ever. Her “younger” fur sisters still fear her. While the legs haven’t worked so well recently, the teeth still work perfectly.

Last Saturday I recorded another video of her lounging in the yard. While she was never much for enjoying the outdoors as a younger dog, sunshine, bird song, curious rabbits and the scents on the wind have become everything to her this year. She was miserable and depressed on the days it rained, leaving her stranded indoors.

I prayed so hard for her to fall asleep on a warm summer day… but the days have run out.  I know she could stand the cooling temperatures, but as much as I’d hoped she would make it to her 14th birthday party this November, it’s too cruel to prolong what we can no longer stave off.

The medicines aren’t working anymore. She’s lost the will to eat this week.  Even feeding her by hand isn’t working anymore, because so little is staying down. She’ll starve unless we end it ourselves. And soon.

So we made the choice, minutes ago.

I’m trying uselessly to capture more pictures of the beautiful lady I still know is inside her frail body. I know I won’t sleep tonight and so I’m coping in the only way I know how, writing on my stupid blog that I hardly use and that is hardly read.

I sent an email tonight. I have to make a couple of difficult phone calls tomorrow.

On Saturday my heart will be in agony as my hand rests over another heart that I know full well will quit beating, because of something I had to do. Something awful, but unavoidable.

For all the love she’s given me, it’s taking all the love I have to let go now.

Tough times ahead.

It was two years ago today that my  beloved Golden Retriever passed away from cancer.

I still think of her frequently.  While she was only a part of my life for a short 6 years (we adopted her as an adult), those years were extremely special to me and losing her left a permanent mark on my life.

It’s not by coincidence that I’ve also been a vegetarian for exactly two years today.

WARNING: You may not wish to read beyond this point.

Frozen ground meant that it was impossible to bury Murphy, and asking the city to pick her up and “dispose” of her in a mass-grave was sickening to me—a callous, cowardly escape for convenience sake. I couldn’t. Not for a pet who had given so much: a cherished member of my family. With no other option, I arranged to have her frozen until the ground thawed. I’ve never been able to eat meat since.

If there was any temptation to revert to my old diet in the spring, it was quashed when warmer weather arrived and I had to bury her frozen remains at the pet cemetery.

Once a year I’m forced to relive this day, all the heartache it invoked, and the choice I had to make. It’s difficult, but still well worth the joy she brought to my life for 6 years.

Her stubborn antics and soft, gentle touch with the children made for an indelible personality—one that is still an element of  our family conversation on a monthly basis.  While her presence is still greatly missed, thankfully we are now able to focus more on the joy she brought to our lives, while feeling less pain at her loss.

Her story is here.

She was three years old at the time we met.  I later found out that she’d been used as a pawn in a marital dispute.  Brandy (whatever she was originally named) had been abandoned purposefully; dumped out of the back of a minivan by a husband wanting to punish his wife.

Before my children were born, she was my baby.  Still is, though nearly a decade later my attention is split in many more directions.

In January of 2008 she was diagnosed with a heart murmur.  We were told she might live another 3 to 6 months.  That was nearly 2½ years ago.  Now at age 12½, she’s become progressively lamer in the back legs and her breathing is sometimes laboured, but she’s still alive.  More importantly, she seems to want to keep living.

I love her, and I wouldn’t let her suffer if it seemed like she was in that state, but I don’t see that.  I know suffering when I see it.  I provided palliative care for Murphy, my Golden Retriever, who suffered what was believed to be stroke, then died of a brain tumour.

With Brandy I see discomfort, but not suffering.

I see a dog that’s excited to eat every morning.  One that loves to watch people and birds, and bask in the warm sunshine.  One that continues to occasionally growl and snap at our younger dogs, just to remind them that whatever states she’s in, she’s still Alpha.  And they fear and respect her.

I still hope that Brandy will go quietly in her sleep, and save me the pain of having to euthanize her, but until she loses the will to live I’ll continue to care for her every day.

What’s helped:

• Prescription for Furosemide 20mg. Originally 2 pills a day; now four
• Glucosamine & Chondroitin (with or without MSM), with each pill embedded in ½ marshmallow (twist, don’t cut)
• Allicin Rich Garlic
• Same activities as always: outside time, car rides
• Physical assistance with movement, but no outright carrying

As soon as you begin to treat a dog like an invalid, they’ll become one.  As soon as you deprive them from the activities they enjoy, their life becomes empty.

Some things, like diet (and especially sodium) have to change significantly, but the more constants that remain the longer and happier your pet’s life will be.

In her early life, Murphy was a therapy dog, providing company to the ill and elderly. However, due to an unfortunate tendency to chew on medical tubes, she was let go, and embarked on a second career as a farm dog.

Murphy lived at Miracle Ranch, a rescue farm for foundlings and other animals in need of a home. There, she met her adopted sister Sadie who she took under her wing and protected. Sadie followed Murphy everywhere on the farm and the two of them often came in at night covered in the horse manure from their escapades during the day. Murphy’s dad loved her very much and encouraged her to sit in his lap despite her being over 55 lbs!

Due to financial hardships, Miracle Ranch was foreclosed and Murphy’s owners sought out the help of a local animal rescuer to help find her and Sadie a new home.

Murphy entered our lives on Friday September 6, 2002, just a few weeks after we had gotten married. We ran an animal rescue called Save-a-Lab and had successfully placed golden retrievers and labs into permanent homes. When the shelter volunteer contacted us to find Murphy and Sadie a home, we readily agreed to call the farm and meet the girls that night. We drove one hour out to Pendleton, IN to pick up Murphy and Sadie, and immediately fell in love with the pair. Murphy’s mom mentioned that she loved to get into trouble and roll in manure, so it was best to keep her hair short. She also told us that Murphy was allergic to bees and had a horrible reaction on her snout, leaving her with an inverted seam across the top of her head. It was a distinctive look and we thought that she looked like a Star Trek character. Apparently, she could sit, stay, roll over, catch popcorn, and loved to roam freely. She hated to be crated because she was a “free spirit”.

Murphy’s parents relayed to us that they wanted the two dogs to be kept together and adopted out as a pair for Sadie’s sake. Sadie had been horribly abused and had been through 4 homes that they were aware of. She had severe trust issues and did not bark. She seemed to feel safe and secure with Murphy and they feared that she would not successfully adapt to another home without her. We agreed to adopt them out as a pair, fully intending to start the search that weekend for their forever family. When it came time to take the dogs home, Murphy’s dad broke into tears and her mother patted the back seat of our cavalier to coax her into the car because she seemed very reluctant to leave them. These dogs were very much loved and it seemed wrong for them to be losing such a loving home. On our drive home, we discussed the possibility of keeping the girls because they seemed so sweet and in need of our care, especially Sadie. By the time we had arrived home, we had made the decision to keep Murphy and Sadie and add her to our growing family of retrievers.

Murphy and Sadie arrived home and met their new sisters Brandy and Abby. Abby was thrilled to finally have play friends while Brandy seemed jealous of the new intruders. Due to the fact that our Alpha, Brandy, did not like the new arrivals, we opted to crate them for everyone’s sake. It appeared that both Brandy and Murphy were alpha dogs and may not get along if left to roam freely. We showed the girls to their new crates and helped them settle in for the night. Murphy did not take well to being crated and resisted entering her crate. She had to be coaxed in with dog treats. Once she realized that she would be in the crate she barked non-stop all night, which made for a very long night. Eventually, Murphy settled into her new home, accepted us as her new owners and calmed down substantially at night. Little did we realize, but Murphy and Sadie were the last retrievers to join our family permanently.

Having just gotten married a couple of weeks earlier, caring for 4 dogs was much more challenging than we had expected, especially since we had conflicting personalities. We debated whether we had made the right decision to keep them, but decided to give it A try for Sadie’s sake as much as for Abby’s sake. Abby was a very sociable retriever and was desperately in need of dog friends. We had mistakenly thought that Brandy and her would hit it off, but quickly realized that Brandy really did not want canine companionship. Since Abby and the new gang seemed to hit if off so well, we wanted to expend the effort to make the transition seemless and successful. In short order, a new “pack” had been established between Murphy, Abby and Sadie. Murphy asserted herself as the leader and took the other two under her wing. Abby and Murphy endlessly played tug of war with rope toys and Murphy and Sadie enjoyed wrestling on the ground, trading spars back in forth in good fun. Sadie only seemed to come out of her shell and be playful in Murphy’s company. At the end of a long day of guarding the yard and playing with her sisters, Murphy would stop to sun bathe, often taking long tugs of water from the bucket of cold water that we refilled regularly. She did not seem to want to come in, even when the sun had set and the temperature had cooled. While her other dog sisters had long since entered the home, Murphy would remain outside, pretending to be deaf or oblivious to our numerous attempts to call her in. It was only when we would go out to retrieve her that she would suddenly develop good listening and vision and “suddenly” realize that it was time to come. Outwardly, we were stern with our disobedient dog, but inwardly, we laughed at her antics. She just loved the outdoors and nothing would ever change that!

Over the years, we rescued many dogs of all ages and breeds. Murphy always took them under her wing and played with them. She was the underdog and came to their defence whenever Brandy’s jealousy got the better of her. She taught all of her sisters how to guard their backyard and was always the first to alert us of a strangers presence, despite her small size. Despite the fact that our first home was in an innercity neighbourhood in Indianapolis, we never worried for our safety because of our protective canines. For this and countless other reasons, we owe Murphy a huge debt of gratitude.

The following year, our family had grown again with the addition of our first daughter in October 2003. While Murphy had been exposed to children, we really had no idea how she would react to a baby. When we brought Taliah home a few days later, Murphy seemed curious and confused by this new arrival. She sniffed her constantly and did not know what to make of her. She allowed Taliah to touch her and pet her, but did not like to be explored in the face as babies are apt to do. However, as Taliah began to grow and start eating real food, the relationship changed again. The dogs quickly discovered that the baby was a source of food and they all vied for the half eaten teething biscuits in her hand or the food that would hit the floor near her high chair. Murphy was notorious for mopping up the leftovers with Abby and always leaving the baby with the impression that it was a good thing to throw food in her direction.

By the time we had moved to our second home in a much nicer and gentrified part of town, we were expecting our second daughter. We were 5 months pregnant and decided that the dogs and the kids deserved to live in a safer environment. What we hadn’t counted on was the vastly different area came with its set of issues. A lot of the people living in this area were of a higher socio-economic strata and were very particular about things that many of our former neighbours were not. Since we were Murphy’s parents, we were somewhat partial to her faults, but others were not as forgiving. She had a very distinctive high pitched bark that was unmistakable and sometimes down right annoying. This was never more clear when our annoying and intolerant neighbour purchased a “super bark free” gizmo and installed it on his fence pointing towards our back door. Whatever he spent on the contraption came to nought because it did nothing to curtail Murph’s stubborn persona. She continued to bark in that same high pitched tone, forcing our neighbour to admit defeat and attempt to sell this item in a yard sale for $1!! While it was immature of us, we giggled over this incident because it brought us great pleasure to annoy this neighbour in kind. For whatever reason, this man was very anti-social and used to throw his garbage over the fence into our yard. We were taken aback by his brashness and even gave him the benefit of the doubt because we could not believe that anyone could be so bold and disrespectful. However, we actually saw him tossing garbage over the fence one morning, so we scooped it up and left it for him in his driveway, too polite to confront his practices. He seemed to have gotten the message and was more careful to toss the garbage over the fence after nightfall. What a little $#@!! However, Murph’s piercing bark must have eventually worn him down because he put his house up for sale and moved about 6 months later. We couldn’t have been happier and we owed much of it to our little “Murphetta” as we sometimes called her.

On a side note, our family had this habit of dorkifying our animals with silly nicknames. Murphy became “Murph”, “Smurf”, “Smurfy”, “Smurfetta”, or “Murphetta”. The name we used would depend on the situation and what she was doing. When she would get into trouble due to her overly curious nature, she would become our “nosey barker”.

Our adventurous Golden often escaped from our fenced yard. She loved to dig huge craters under the fence, prompting us to have to dig a trench around the perimeter of the backyard and pour concrete mix to prevent future breakouts. However, she seemed intent on escaping and would watch for opportunities. One day, we forgot to latch the back gate correctly and the wind blew the gate open. Murphy took advantage of the situation and convinced Sadie to tag along for the walk. Abby, too fearful of leaving the yard, stayed behind. No sooner had the dogs gone out for an afternoon break did we receive a call from a neighbour relaying that she found our girls taking themselves for a walk down the alleyway. She quickly rounded them up in her yard and contacted us by calling the phone number on their dog tags. When we walked over to pick them up, Murphy had a very guilty yet smug look on her face. It was so hard to be angry when confronted with such spunk. We walked the girls home chastising them all the way. When we arrived home, both were sent straight to their crates. Murphy seemed to be muttering under her breath the way you would hear a teenager mouthing back to their parents! It was so funny and worrisome all at the same time. Why did she continue to make such bad decisions? When would she stop scaring the hell out of us? Sometimes it made us feel better to vent our frustrations to ourselves about our obnoxious “nosey barker”. We wondered if other dog owners were equally “blessed” with a dog that perpetually required us to go looking for her or bail her out of situations she’d gotten herself into. Regardless, we secretly loved her unique personality that separated her from her sisters.

Our family relocated from Indianapolis, IN in 2006 back to Ontario, Canada for schooling purposes. Given that we were moving from a home we owned to one we would need to rent, we were advised by countless people and prospective landlords to “get rid of our dogs” before the move. Everyone thought that it would be impossible to move 4 dogs and 2 kids from one country to another. We steadfastly refused to give up our girls. They were our children or “dogters” as we often called them. Why should we give them away just because it would be easier for us to find a rental home or because life would be simpler without them? Each time a dog was given to a new home, they had to readjust and bond to a new owner. Trust issues and behaviour disorders often developed in these animals, resulting in their arrival to our rescue or their being relinquished to shelters. What people did not realize was that dogs often became unadoptable once they passed from home to home, as was the case with Sadie. Years of rehabilitative work would be needed to undo the damage that had been done and still, there was no guarantee of success. Most families lacked the patience and commitment needed to care for such an animal, so it was doubly important that we not do this to our bunch. We took our responsibility and commitment to them very seriously and kept the family together. The dogs received all necessary vaccinations and documentation needed to cross borders.

By the Grace of God, everything fell into place and in September of 2006, our entire family moved to Kemptville, Ontario. It was rural farmland and the dogs seemed to be in heaven. They ran around the hay fields chasing one another. They loved the outdoors and the clean country air. Murphy was especially notorious for taking off and disappearing out of sight for hours. She would convince her sisters to follow her on her nocturnal adventures, leaving us afraid and worried for their safety. More often than not, we would be out there looking for our girls calling out their names in the dark with a flashlight. All of them would eventually return within minutes except Murphy. We suspected that Murphy heard us but simply chose not to come. She was stubburn in that way. We were forced to leave the porch light on all night so that she would be able to find our home in the pitch black night. When she finally did return, it would be around 2 or 3 in the morning and she would come up the the front porch and lay at the door. AS the weather cooled and temperatures fell below freezing, we became worried for Murphy’s health. We would lay awake until 1 or 2 in the morning, listening for her footsteps. Periodically, we would check to see if she had returned and would not allow ourselves to go to bed until she had.

In the spring, Murphy developed a bad habit of trying to chase wild turkey. Luckily, they were fast and flew away before she got near enough but it never stopped her from trying to catch the poultry that frequently nested in the field across the street. Apparently, Murphy was up to no good at a neighbour’s farm. He relayed that she was stirring up the animals at night and requested that she stop. Our little troublemaker’s nightly adventures needed to be more closely monitored and that we would need to walk her on a leash if we expected to keep her out of trouble.

By summer’s end we moved from Kemptville to the city of Ottawa. Our city dogs that had relished their time in the country would once again live the cosmopolitan life! We moved to our current home with all 4 in tow. WE deliberately picked a home that backed onto a forest and the largest dog park in the city. We hoped that they would be happy here as they had been in Kemptville. They seemed to settle into any home we moved to so long as we were their with them. To us, this showed that our rehabilitative efforts were paying huge dividends. The girls romped around in the yard daily. Murphy and Abby played rope toy tug-of-war. Murphy and Sadie wrestled and took turns playing dominant and submissive. Murphy played with her Kong toy and would get upset when the game didn’t go her way. It seemed that things couldn’t be more perfect and normal except that we were expecting baby #3.

As the winter progressed, the snow kept coming. We had received such record snow falls that our front and back yards were one huge white blanket of compact snow. The snow eventually reached such a height that the dogs could easily walk over the fence and escape into the vast forest behind the house. As soon as Murphy and crew figured this out, they quickly leaped over the fence and took off down the dog trails before we were able to catch up with them. On more than one occasion, we were forced to bundle up and attempt to find dogs in thigh high snow, wading through acres of forest in bitterly cold temperatures. The first 2 to return were always Sadie and Abby. Not surprisingly, Murphy was the last to be found. She would reluctantly return if found or if she were hungry. She seemed to truly enjoy romping outdoors, regardless of the weather. We, as her parents, were not as anxious to have to look for her at 11 p.m. in the mud and rain or 5 feet of compact snow!

By summer of 2008, our renovation projects took priority as baby #3 was on her way and more bedrooms were needed. The dogs patiently tolerated construction as their crates and roaming areas were in the construction area. Since Murphy had free roaming privileges in this part of the house, she often ventured into the midst of the construction zone attempting to figure out what we were up to. She would find pieces of left over blocks of wood and would sneak them back to her cage to chew on. She seemed to enjoy this as much as she enjoyed chewing on knuckle bones from Petsmart. Her curiosity was her biggest undoing and led to her disobedience of directives. She seemed to crave being in the midst of things and being around her humans. We took some priceless pictures of Murphy sneaking into a newly built bedroom just before the kids were about to start painting it. Despite the fact that she had been asked to “keep out dog”, she never seemed to take us seriously. Such was Murphy!

Right after the birth of our 3rd daughter in August 2008, things became quite hectic in our household. Murphy took it all in stride as she was a pro adjusting to babies by now. She seemed unfazed by the arrival and enjoyed having both of us at home. Unfortunately, she developed a nasty habit of going through the garbage and shredding dirty baby diapers and leaving the contents all over the house. We tried several ways of keeping her out of the garbage, but nothing seemed to work. We reluctantly began to re-crate her in our absence, which she strongly objected to by barking obnoxiously for long periods of time. We hated doing this and felt guilty but did not have the mental resources to deal with her poor decision making that seemed to be intentional. It wasn’t as if we failed to feed the little butterball!

As Christmas neared, things became increasingly hectic. We were sleep deprived and adjusting to the latest addition to the family. We were also planning a trip south to Indy for a week or two. Because of the lack of space in our vehicle and because of the personality conflicts between Brandy and Murphy, we left the 3 musketeers behind to be cared for by our extended family and departed for the US. As is turns out, we were gone for 3 weeks and returned home in late January of 2009. We missed our dogs terribly and couldn’t wait to see them again. The dogs seemed equally happy to have us home.

However, upon our return, Murphy seemed unwell. She was bumping into objects, circling the basement and limping on one side. Her eyes were glassy and something seemed very wrong. She kept wanting to bury her head into corners and just wasn’t her old self. She was incontinent and she was never one to have accidents in the house. A quick trip to the vet and we learned that she had suffered a stroke. We were told that the prognosis was not good and were given prednisone. Murphy sis not respond well to the prednisone and began to have violent seizures that resulted in her injuring her tongue and head. We stopped the medication and attempted to read up on-line as to what we could do for her. All of the on-line feedback seemed to be positive and we followed the advice. The stroke seemed to have robbed her of her memory and her relationship with her sisters changed drastically. She did not seem to know who they were and did not play with them. She became a loner in the yard and they seemed confused by her behaviour. She forgot how to eat so we placed her food dish in front of Sadie’s so that she could watch her eat and imitate her. Never in a million years could we have imagined Sadie modeling proper dog behaviour for Murphy!! Sadly, Murphy did not seem to remember her adversarial relationship with Brandy and also seemed to have trouble going up and down stairs. Her notoriously soft mouth that had brought us live baby birds in past years bit our hands as we fed her cookies. The only constant that remained was that she LOVED going outdoors. We changed her bedding 4-5 times daily and encouraged her with loving praise. We were unwilling to give up on her as long as she was willing to fight. Our little fighter made a full recovery from her stroke, began barking in that high pitched tone and regained most of her memory. We had such hopes of her living a full life since her recent bloodwork at the vet revealed no detectable issues. We had even gotten her to start eating her food voraciously. Murphy’s appetite was well established as being bottomless, so when she appeared to return to being the “stomach with feet”, we were extremely encouraged.

However, without warning, and literally overnight, Murphy stopped eating, lost 20 lbs and began the restless, circling behaviour of her stroke. She refused to open her mouth, resulting in our having to force feed her tuna and soft dog food. We became so worried that we purchased a high calorie Boost drink and began force feeding her with a syringe to prevent her from starving to death. As a last ditch effort, we consulted the vet for pain medication because it was clear that she was crying out in pain at night and restless, unable to sleep. We would take turns at night sleeping with her, letting her know that she was loved and special. The vet insisted that we try the prednisone one more time. He indicated that she likely had a brain tumour and that the stroke was a secondary symptom of the cancer. It was in its advanced stage and there was nothing more we could do short of alleviating the symptoms through prednisone. Giving her medication that she did not tolerate previously was a fatal mistake. Her heart rate increased and she panted for hours until it brought upon another stroke. Her brain began to hemorrhage and she had trouble breathing. We prayed that her passing would be quick because it was evident that she was in pain. However, the selfish part of us was willing to keep fighting for her as long as she kept showing us the will to live. Exhausted, we left Murphy alone for 10 minutes while we bathed and changed. When we left her, she was trying to stand up so we thought that we could take her to the vet when they opened. Upon our return, Murphy’s pain became too much and she could no longer keep up the pretense of being brave on our account. She died at 9 a.m. on Wednesday March 4, 2009. We were devastated and cried with our youngest 2 daughters at our side.

When we regained composure we called vet clinics to locate the nearest pet cemetery. None could be located in Ottawa. We were told that most people cremated and that there were a couple of cemeteries within 3-4 hours of here. We were uncomfortable with the idea of cremation and we wanted to be able to visit her final resting place as often as we wanted to. We proceeded to look on-line for additional phone numbers and found 2 others. We called all of the cemeteries and only one pet cemetery answered their phone: Nature’s Way. We made arrangements to take Murphy out to them. Since it was still winter and the ground was frozen, we were told that we would have to wait until the thaw to actually bury our little butterball. We picked up our oldest daughter from school on the way to the cemetery. The ride there seemed extremely long and we were emotionally drained from the events of the morning.

Our children had never experienced death before and endlessly asked questions about Murphy that we did not feel ready to answer. We were grieving ourselves and emotionally attached to our “child”. We held her and kissed her one last time before laying her in their freezer. We removed her collar and tags and wrapped a red ribbon (the colour of her collar) around her neck. We cried all the way back home and decided to make the new website for Nature’s Way as our personal tribute to our baby. Cancer may have cut her life prematurely short but we feel blessed to have had her for the 6.5 years that we did. We would give anything to hear her bark just one more time . . .

On a weekly basis, we called Nature’s Way to check the status about her burial. We received a call on Saturday April 11, 2009 that the site had been readied for her. We decided to hold the funeral on Monday April 13, 2009 at noon. We chose the day after Easter to give our little ones the opportunity to enjoy Easter without the sadness that was sure to happen the following day and because the weather would be warmer on Monday. We buried Murphy on April 13, 2009 arriving a little early. We brought her sisters Sadie and Abby to the funeral, wanting to give them a chance to say their goodbyes given that she mysteriously disappeared one day without their understanding why. We didn’t know whether they would get it, but we felt we owed them and Murphy the opportunity. We placed the headstone that we carefully made behind her gravesite. We left with a heavy heart knowing that we would never have the chance to see or hold her again. We thought that we had worked through our grief since her passing, but clearly we have not. All we have left of our precious dog are the memories, a lock of her hair, her collar and tags, and the classic pictures we took of her. While there will never be another Murphy, there will always be love in my heart for other special dogs needing forever homes. Murphy’s legacy is her sister Sadie who now appears fully rehabilitated 6.5 years later and has finally come unto her own.