I dont know if Leigh and Mark will be able to give us a Rainbow Bridge/Obituary page, so I thought Id would start a thread to remember our dogs that have now left us, until admin can perhaphs sort out something permanent for us. So I will start with my first Wolfhound...Kelly. I was a complete novice when I bought Kelly in 1981. I had never seen a little Wolfie pup before, and until I saw others, I didnt realise she looked much more like a Deerhound. I thought I was doing the right thing buying her from the top breeder at the time.Little did I realise!!!! After we had had her for a week, I woke one morning to find kelly was totally paralized
It was Feb and snowing. I phoned the breeder and was told"Wolfhounds are big babies. Kick her up the a***, lay her out in the snow, and when she gets cold enough, she will get up!" Needless to say, I never spoke to them again. After many tests etc at the vets, it was discovered that she had a crack in her spine, and that nerves had got caught in the crack. She was on Pethadine for two weeks, and then had to come off it, very very slowly, because of addiction. She finally recoverd, but always walked like a drunk, two steps forward , and then one to the side to balance herself. The rest of her life she enjoyed good helth, and although finely built and unsteady on her legs, she ruled the other Wolfies with a rod of iron. She had a huge personality, and always had the best chair in the house, and the first windfalls of the apple and pear trees. The other Wolfies used to sit and wait patiently while she had her pick, and then once she had walked away, used to pick out their favourite piece of fruit. One morning when she was 10, she had her breakfast and came up to give me her usual thank you kiss, and she was perfectly normal. About lunch time, she came to me, and stared straight at me, and I noticed a huge lump between her eyes. I first of all though she had been stung, but on examination the lump was rock hard. When we got to the vets, he x rayed her head and said she had to have surgery straight away. The lump on top that I could see was a huge abcess, but underneath the abcess my Kelly had Cancer and it was eating into her head. She was not allowed to wake up from the anesthetic. I am forever grateful to her for starting my love of this wonderful breed, and always sad that I didnt have a chance to say goodbye to her.

Oh Philippa. You shouldn't make me cry at my desk. :(

I will add "Shep", our first border collie. I was 4 when we got her and I loved her to death. Her death at 14 from cancer was my first introduction to loss and grief. Then Ben who had severe epilepsy and had to be PTS aged 2. Then Jenny who died aged 15 after a stroke. And recently Sprocket (dog of dubious parentage) and Dexter (in-law's Airedale).

You don't realise what they mean until they're gone.

Al is dreading the day that anything happens to the TH.

On this day of remembrance, I think it is a lovely idea to recall memories of our beloved four legged friends. Our first was Thatch, a gorgeous Rough Collie - we were unknowledgeable and probably did everything wrong but he was a devoted and loving companion until he was pts aged 13. Then there was Barney, our SC Wheaten Terrier - he, too was a lovely boy, but he did have some temperament problems. We lost him at the age of 6, three days after he had a booster vaccination.

Teejay and Buddy are still very much with us and hopefully will be for many years to come.

Hi 9th, Im sorry, I didnt mean to make you cry xxx

[deleted]

Dear Nicky, Dont feel bad honey. I truly think until you experienced a torsion, you never quite know what to look for. I lost Barney another IW with it at 18 months of age. He was fine when I went to bed, and the pups (then five weeks) woke me up at 5.30. Barney hadnt made a sound, but he looked like he had swallowed a big bass drum. My vet( god bless him) cancelled his holiday flight to operate on him. During the op, Barney stopped breathing. My vet gave him the kiss of life, and he started breathing again. Then his spleen ruptured. The vet removed his spleen, stitched his stomach wall, put him on a ventilator, and then we sat by his side and waited...and waited. Two hours later, he bloated again, and was too weak to undergo another three hour op, so was quietly pts.

Thanx Phil. x

The only dog I've lost todate is my Milly. She died at 8 months of some sort of poisoning (never worked out what). It totally devasted me in a way I never thought posible. The worst thing, however, was seeing how my other dog, Winston (still with me!) reacted. They say dogs don't grieve but he lay on her blanket and cried. He looked round the doors where they used to play and was very down for quite some time.
Milly died at the vets overnight so I wasn't there so I went to see her the next day. I decided to take Winston with me so he could understand why she wasn't there, he just howled when he saw her.
However, I'm pretty certain she came back to visit Winston on the night she died and on her first anniversay.
Took me 3 or so years to learn to cope with her death.
Bec

Oh Bec, that's so sad. Human grief is hard enough but to watch the grief of your dog must be unbearable. I found it hard enough dealing with my husband's grief because I was so shocked to see him cry, but if we had had another dog who was also mourning Zico I don't know how I would have coped.

I'm off to cuddle Kaiser right now

L & K

I lost my beloved Mars at the beginning of August and I am still finding it very difficult.

She was my first ever dog and will always have a very special place in my heart. She was to me one of the most loving and happy dogs I have ever known but also very independant and proud.

She was an devoted mother to Min and also took on the role of Grandmother to Moose with great enthusiam right upto the end.

She went in a very dignified and quiet way but it was such a hard thing to do for us. One of the worst memories about it which I am just coming to terms with was when we were getting her out of the car to place her in the bed the Pet Cemetary had prepared for her.She had on her last journey brought up her stomach contents and when I went to give her my last kiss goodbye I was so shocked to see what her head had been lying in. I was devasted. But I calmed when the owner of the cemetary looked down at her and said what a beautiful girl she was and covered her up in such a clam and loving way.

It is so hard when you loose something that has given you 100% love and has given so many people happiness and joy.

I hope with time it will get easier as I hope the same for people who have lost their beloved dogs too.

Lucy

Phil, I'll start with one you know about, what our US friends call their "heart hound", and the dog that I really badly got it wrong with. Some of you have noticed that Piranha was special to me - she was special to everyone - but she wasn't really a dog, and she most certainly didn't belong to anyone but herself. Corrib was a dog, and she was mine, body, heart and soul, as I was hers. She knew my every thought and every mood. In some ways it wasn't a good thing because although she had a super temperament, she was protective of me. She was also the absolute, total and very efficient ruler of our dog pack. A waggle of the eybrows brought most of the other dogs into line, and a bared canine was an extreme sanction.

She was a 36" (a real 36 inches), muscular but not heavy grey wolfhound bitch, and one of only a tiny handful of wolfhounds I've met that were genuine athletes. We sometimes exercise the dogs along a disused railway cutting, and one point is very high, very, very steep, and faced with flat slabs of stone. Corrib used to gallop up this like a massive grey spider. She was also one of the few wolfies I've known that was a true hunter. She took rabbits on the lamp, and once took a strong hare with good lee, although admittedly she had some help from a deerhound. Her hunting fixation was fox. Corrib seemed determined to exterminate every fox in the region, and made such a good try at it, I'm sure she was not popular with the two local hunts.

If there was ever a personification of 'great size and commanding appearance' it was Corrib. She had enormous dignity: when people visited very occassionally she did take a liking to someone, but usually she greeted them politely and briefly and then observed them quietly until they left. Once she took an instant dislike to a stranger in our home, and she actually growled slightly at him. She was punished for that of course, but she was right, and the chap went on to cause Ian and me considerable trouble and distress. I was never sure if she was picking up my subconcious negative feelings, but in the end I took her assessment of people seriously enough that puppy inquireres had to pass 'the Corrib test'. If Corrib didn't like someone much (she usually only expressed it by staying watchfully between me and them), they didn't get a pup. Her dignity had its funny side too. She was called Corrib for the lough in Galway, but when she was a pup, we sometimes called her 'Corrie-bo-bo', and Bo-Bo came to be her special pet name - and boy did she hate it if we used it in front of any but a handful of close human friends!

She was heart tested annually of course, and had been selected from a breeder who is known for longevity and takes great care about breeding away from cardiomyopathy, but when she was four, she suddenly pulled up from full gallop, panting and was cyanosed for a few minutes. The cardiologist at the Dick vet said that her cardiomyopathy was so advanced at that stage she could only expect to live for 6 months at most. He even suggested a heart transplant (he must have been doing a research project!). Well he was wrong by six years. She got the best of care from my vets, and though her hunting days were over she remained generally healthy, and well enough to gallop, though she never had the stamina that she'd had before.

Then when Corrib was almost 10 a pup I'd bred got a CC at SKC, and the proud owner brought her straight from the show to our house for a celebration. Unfortunately she brought kennel cough as well as her certificate, and although most of my dogs got it mildly, Corrib had a bad dose, and went into heart failure. That was treated (those wondeful vets again!), and she was back to pretty good health within a few days. But thereafter, every few weeks she'd go into left ventricular failure again. Treating a dog for LVF is exactly the same as treating a human, and in Corrib's case there wasn't even a weight difference to cause problems in working out drug dosages. I had access to the appropriate drugs, so after the first couple of episodes, I treated her myself. That's where I went wrong.

It happened maybe half a dozen times, and on each occassion she responded well, and was back to reasonable health in a day or two. Until, when she was almost 10 and a half, she didn't respond well at all, but like a fool, I didn't call the vet but kept hoping and dosing. Two and a half days later at 3 am, she tried to get to the door to relieve herself, fell over, was incontinent (you could see how much that upset her), and died where she'd fallen before the vet could arrive. In retrospect (and if I'd had the sense of a gnat), she should have been PTS 48 hours before. That was 6 years ago, and there are still tears as I type this because in my arrrogance, stupidity and the hope that she'd stay with me just a little longer, I forced my wonderful, most dignified dog to drown in her own fluids and to die in her own excrement with fear and distress in her eyes. That was a poor reward for over 10 years of absolute love and devotion. Its a mistake I'll never make again, and one I'll never forgive myself for.

Sharon

A lovely description :D :D Please don't beat yourself up about it, we live and we learn. It is understandable that we don't want to be left by those we love, and it is always easier with hindsight. Do you think she would want you to think like that.....I don't think so

Beth x

Sharon,

The only mistake you made was loving too much. We've all been guilty of that and of wanting to hang on to our loved ones for just a little more time.

I made that mistake with Imogen and I'm sure that there are hundreds of other people out there who have made that same mistake with someone they loved.

love and hugs,

Fiona
x x x

Awww sis, youve made my eyes fill up. I understand the distress you still feel, and as other posters have said, I think most of us have done the same thing. Its because we love them so very much and dont want them to leave us. It always teaches us a well learned lesson, but its such a hard way to learn. Corrib loved you unconditionally, and she wouldnt want you to still feel bad. You know so well what wonderful hearts and natures these dogs have, so she would understand. xx

Don't feel bad Sharon, the worst you were guilty of is loving her too much.
Nicky

my eyes are filled please do not think so bad of your self you did what you thought was right, you loved her so much, and i think that is what a lot of people would have done. think of the good things that you done and the love that you both shared for all the years that she was with you and that is to you all

love

lorraine
hugs to you all xxxx

Oh Sharon, please release the guilt. I'm positive that Corrib has. She loved you, knew your heart, and definitely understands that you had all of the best intentions for her treatment. You wanted her to get better. It was tragic how it ended for her. She knows how hard it would have been for you to say goodbye without doing every single bit you could have for her.
She sounds like such a beautiful and noble soul. I would have really liked to have met her. I can't help but wonder if I would have "passed" her test :)

I know she is waiting for you both to meet up again :) :)
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Sara

Thanks Sara and others, but I've lost many dogs that were special in one way or another and worth memorialising, so please don't make me feel I can't write about them because I'll feel people might think I'm looking for comfort or justification for wrong decisions. And I was wrong about Corrib. Technically I'm capable of making the correct clinical judgements for a dog in LVF. But doctors don't treat close members of their own family for the very good reason that they are rarely if ever capable of divorcing emotion from clinical competence. And in effect what I did was to treat a much loved family member. That's what was so arrogant and so stupid. It was a hard but good lesson - I'll still suture my own dogs, and treat minor problems, but the vets make the decisions about major things.

I told the story because Corrib was a beautiful and noble soul and the most splendid ambassador for her breed. I'm quite sure that she didn't forgive me, because - as Phil says - wolfhounds have such wonderful hearts and natures that she would never have blamed me. (Sara I'm well sure you would have passed the Corrib test :-)).

Nicky, Phil's right about you not beating yourself up too. I've never had a bloat thank heaven, and I'm always worried that if I do have one I'll miss it.