Jump to content
Grief Healing Discussion Groups

DogMom623

Members
  • Posts

    1
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by DogMom623

  1. I'm so glad to have found this site and I appreciate the opportunity to share about our sweet Barney, who died on Saturday after a long battle with congestive heart failure. Barney was a cocker spaniel boy whom we rescued almost 6 years ago from cocker rescue, and with Mynka (also a rescue, age 12 now) is a cherished member of our family. Mynka has been doing pretty well on her meds - no worsening over the last several months. Barney, however, has been showing significant decline in the last two weeks. Last week, I noticed that he wasn't eating as well as he usually does, and he was even more tired and sluggish than usual. Thursday night, he turned down a Greenie, which is unheard of, and he didn't want his dinner. I hoped that it was just the hot weather, which has slowed us all down. We have a/c, as does the car, but even so the heat has been tough on everyone. Friday, we loaded the dogs up and headed north to Marquette. Nothing unusual, other than Barney seeming tired and not wanting to move around. That night though, at the hotel, he hardly slept, pacing and panting all night. I took him outside once at 3am, and all he wanted to do was lie in the grass and pant. Saturday morning, we got up to go to the nursing home, and he seemed a little better after his potty walk and some fresh ice water. By the time we got to the nursing home, he wasn't interested in walking anywhere, so Tom kept him in the truck in the a/c while Mynka and I went visiting. When they picked us up, Barney seemed a little better. We started to head up to the lakeshore, and I noticed that Barney's gums were gray, not pink, and that he was panting excessively and drooling. (He had been in the air-conditioned truck all the time - not out in the heat.) I decided to call our vet's answering service for advice - is this an emergency or not - and left a message for the vet to call us. Five minutes later, Barney was looking even more gray,, so I called a local (Marquette) vet's emergency number, and explained that we were visitors and were concerned about Barney's condition, the CHF, etc. While I was on the phone with the answering service, I looked back at Barney in the back seat, and he had collapsed and wasn't breathing. I tried to give him mouth-to-nose breathing and CPR(probably incorrectly), but got absolutely no response. After about 5 minutes, it was obvious that he was gone. If there is any silver lining, it's that he did not suffer. One moment he was sitting there looking at me...the next he was gone. We got home Saturday night, after driving straight back to Mt. Pleasant and going by the vet. Our vet kindly met us there at 10:30 pm, when we got back. It was so hard to leave Barney there for the last time. I'm absolutely stunned, and crushed, and my eyes hurt from all the tears. I knew he was a sick dog, but we had no idea that he was going downhill so fast. I was not ready for this at all. We are still numb. Mynka slept most of the way home - of course, she has CHF also, but hopefully we can keep hers under control for quite a bit longer. It is so very odd, and sad, to only have one cocker kid here now. Right now we're exhausted and emotionally devastated. I don't have human children - Barney and Mynka are my "kids," and this hurts more than anything I can remember. He was truly my sweet cocker boy. I can't imagine our family without him. I just don't know how to deal with this.. Hug your furkids tonight - Linda Linda and Tom Mynka, our cocker girl Barney @ RB August, 1994 - July 16, 2005, our beloved cocker boy dogmom623@gmail.com IM/Yahoo/MSN DogMom623
×
×
  • Create New...