The Kindest thing

Life is amazing. It is a miracle that we all take for granted every day.

Life is everywhere we look. Yet unbelievably fragile. We have not had much experience of just how fragile until recently.

All our pets had lived into old age so the death of a dog at under 2 years old is completely unbearably heartbreaking.

Oddjob quickly deteriorated with not being able to move properly, falling into his food bowl and on the last day not even wanting to eat and shaking non stop. He was soothed by me just laying beside him and stroking him very gently so that is what happened most of the day and night until we went into the vet and those words were uttered.

He was released from pain and his body resumed the usual form which made it even more apparent how out of sorts he had been.

I took him home and he has a special place in the garden as he has in our hearts.

Rhyme tried to lick him back to life and couldn't understand initially but he hasn't pined for him so hopefully he did. They were always together and Rhyme took such care of him.

We still don't have a full diagnosis of whether he had a glioma or just an abscess all we know is that something was inflamed in his brain that caused him pain and he wasn't able to use his body properly.

We naturally wonder what went wrong and how such a thing can happen. We think need to know answers to avoid this happening again.

But to be honest what we really, really want is to have our happy, full of fun and vitality, boy back. To hear snorting and snoring, to have to take shorter strides, to have 6 food bowls again and to get well and truly puggled.

My thoughts are he has work to do else where to help somebody that needs cheering up.

We have very lucky lives and although it is incredibly sad to lose him we were at least lucky enough to have shared part of his way too short life.

So this blog is no longer active. I'll just
leave you with a poem I wrote for him.


Why doesn't even begin to answer all the pain

When things don't make sense but we ask it again & again
What could have been changed so you wouldn't die
Who decided it was time to say goodbye
So many questions but the answers won't mend
All the heartbreak felt by your premature end
Whatever the reason whatever the blame
Having loved & lost you our lives will never be the same