The Official "Dogs of the DMF" Thread

[brimo]

Sad days, have had to say goodbye to my two beloved furry friends. The older girl Bessie had survived thyroid cancer for over a year after the removal of her thyroid and recently she had been getting sick due to secondaries and we  knew that it was her time. It just so happened that the younger girl, Chloe had been complaining of some soreness, unfortunately it turned out to be major lung cancer, so within 3 days I lost both my girls.

[Ducatamount]

Very sorry for your loss.They look like beautiful, loving girls.Honor their memory.

[Monsterlover]

Sorry to hear

[RAT900]

here's one I wrote a few years back....not sure if I ever posted it here...but...it is a true story and one I still hold close

Its for anyone who has loved a pet deeply and been faced with putting them down...I would like to believe we pet owners 

have great things to look forward to when we're all done here

DOG SITTING

My youngest sister Amy was on the phone explaining to me that she and a group of friends from her office decided to do something different after work rather than go for the usual drinks at the neighboring pub. Upon consensus they decided to go visit a psychic one of them knew of.
They all thought it would be good for a few laughs. The woman was rumored to have helped locate the bodies of the four youths who had drown off City Island the other winter after they swamped a boat they attempted to row over to Potters Field on the neighboring island.
It started when I came home from work that evening and found a message on my answering machine from Amy. She called me at home to say that she and a few friends had gone on this lark to visit a psychic.

They all expected to hear about their prospects for romance and the usual blather that these types dish out. To my sister's surprise the woman started asking the group of girls for Amy…the psychic had zeroed right in and was asking for her by name. My sister cringed and told the old woman she was Amy. The psychic looked at her and said, "Your father had a message for your brother Gerry".
She said his message to me was "Tell Gerry I have the dog."….she repeated it several times.
Amy said the woman was trying to say the dog's name but was having trouble "channeling it", so evidently according to this medium, my father settled for "the dog" in order to get the message across.

The dog's name was Siegfried.

Amy was a bit rattled as she knew immediately that if any of this was possible, it related directly to a German Shepherd I once owned-however she did not fully understand the value or meaning of the statement the psychic had offered to her. But she certainly got more than she bargained for in going along with the idea of a fun time at a psychic's shop in the back of an old Italian bakery.

As she related this story to me, my first response to her was; "Great! You mean my poor make the beast with two backsing dog is in hell with him?"………….we both laughed.
We buried our father in 1982, he was 56 years old at the time of his death, and he welcomed the final heart attack that took him out. He had simply decided he had lived beyond any redemption and had made too much a mess of everything to sort it out.

Six months prior to our father's death, I was in a world in which my wife was struggling to manage our year-old twins and at the time, was in sobbing crisis on a daily basis. She felt she couldn't manage the twins along with our 9 year-old German Shepherd and female Collie Shepherd, two animals I had brought into our marriage. My wife was overwhelmed with the responsibility of twins, suffered from some manner of post-birth depression and I was afraid for her. She asked repeatedly if we could give the dogs away.

That seemed an impossible request on her part as both dogs were bonded to each other and to me. When I would leave them with family or with friends when traveling, neither would eat until I returned. My Shepherd would literally starve himself and once went close to a week without eating. The dog even declined the desperate offers of porterhouse and sirloin steaks from my family when I was away. Putting the dogs out for adoption would have been a cruelty I was not capable of, they would have had to have been split apart and then again split from me. Death seemed kinder…in my family of origin, death has seemed the kinder option on many occasions for many members…
It broke my heart to do it, but I finally had both dogs put down at the vet's office- I had a greater obligation to my wife and children. Crying like a kid in some vintage Disney heartbreaker, I did what I had to. The decision never sat well with me and it has always been what I consider to be one of the darkest moments of my life. They were 9 years old when I put them down, a good run, but there were years ahead we did not get to share.

Needless to say my wife's sense of being overwhelmed did not diminish one whit, was not alleviated with the termination of the pets and I was two dogs short in my efforts to make the impossible, better. And I lost two fierce guardians of the children, creatures who adored the twins and were proud of the addition to their "pack." More than once my Shepherd alerted us to the little crawlers pulling on lamp cords or otherwise approaching danger.
Anyway, at my father's funeral, I had experienced some really mixed feelings about his death...the prevailing one was a sense of relief that he was finally over. He wasn't a particularly kind father, rather he was angry and brutal and devoid of any warmth. In his last years he was quiet and had softened somewhat but lived in a state of humility borne of defeat.

I figured I would eventually find a place for him to either reside peacefully in me or somehow dispose of the weight of his memory…yet I never quite found where to park my memory of him for the 22 years after his death. But I became damn weary of carrying him around so I knew I'd drop him off somewhere, eventually, hopefully soon.
One of the few things about my father late in his life, that I found redeeming, was his absolute love for my dog. For whatever reasons Siegfried took a liking to my father and my father responded in kind. Here was a man whom every human being (including himself) had seemingly disappointed, we as children let him down and he in turn let all of us down, he lived alone until the end.

At that late date in my father's life, he only found genuine comfort in spending time with my dog. I would leave that dog with him for hours and it would seem to leave my father with some animation in his eyes. My father's interactions with all of us were so contaminated with his own sense of guilt and shame that it was painful to spend any protracted amount of time with him. The conversations were stilted and awkward and never of any genuine substance, we, in turn were all too angry to let him off the hook.
The dog was extraordinary in many ways; he came to be with me in one of the blackest, bleakest loneliest periods of my life. It was during a time before I re-met and ultimately married my future wife. This awkward puppy with tree-stump legs gave me something to live for when I was at an age and circumstance where I had no real obligations tethering me to the world and no credible idea of why I was even here.

I invested every ounce of caring and effort I could muster into training the 10 week-old puppy, he responded to my efforts with incredible clarity and speed to the degree that it appeared he was an intuitive learner. The dog never ceased in his desire to let me know that he was operating on a level far above what I might ever expect. At nearly every opportunity he would seek to demonstrate or communicate to me that he was actively thinking. I never ceased to be impressed by him. None of my Shepherds since have come close to him in terms of sheer intelligence, but then I have never since invested as much effort or attachment into any of them.
Anyway, I had Siegfried and his partner Sadie put down only a few months before my father's death- a far more painful event than burying my own father. Only my sister Cathy's suicide surpassed the pain of giving up those dogs.

At the time my father took the news about Siegfried in stride, probably as just one more loss in a life choked with disappointments and losses.
Well back to the point now; at the close of the viewing/wake for my father at the funeral home, everyone else had gone out to the limo's to queue up for the ride to the cemetery.

Before the ushers sealed up my father's casket, I asked them to wait a moment. I went up to his coffin and looked down at him one last time- he was old beyond his years, tired, self-defeated, consumed by his demons and now as lifeless in body as he was lifeless in spirit in his final years of living.

I don't know why, but I felt sorry for him, I took a momentary break from my lifetime of anger and resentment toward him. For a moment all I saw were the remains of a very scared human who was so lost in life, he tried to bluff his way through it, unfortunately for him life turned and called his bluffs. I found myself hoping he wouldn't be equally as lost in death.

It was sad that in the end the most I could come up with, was pity, I had no place for him that could feel any sorrow….. for I could not find the love in me that would have made that possible- that had been bullied out of me decades before.

For some reason, I brought with me that final day, one of the more beautiful snapshots I had of my German Shepherd. I tucked the photo inside my father's coffin and just whispered at his body; "go find my Siegfried and take good care of him for me".

I guess in some maudlin, sentimental way, I was just hoping he would find some peace and companionship wherever he had gone, and that I might  get some peace for myself . I then turned and headed for the waiting limo.
I had forgotten I had placed that photo of Siegfried in my father's coffin nearly 22 years ago…..and said those words. I only remembered it after speaking with my sister that night about her adventure at the psychic's shop

"Tell Gerry I have the Dog", who knows what is exactly real and what isn't? I don't pretend to have all the answers anymore………..
But since that conversation with my sister, I think maybe I don't have to figure out how or where to dump the memories of my father off.

Maybe with all the noise and static of living gone, he finally heard his son's heart speaking to him in that funeral parlor, and for the first and final time he honored what was asked of him.

So perhaps I have found a gentle place in my heart where I might carry my father,,,,where he won't weigh so heavily on me....right alongside the memory of an old German Shepherd dog I once knew and so dearly loved.....

[Triple J]

So sorry to hear about your pups Brimo. 

[Howie]

Sorry to hear, Brimo.

[Polpetta]

 

[triangleforge]

So very sorry to hear that news, Brimo.

[LMT]

 

[Polpetta]

Friends,

As most of you over the past year we have been taking Jasper to several Veterinarians and Specialist trying to diagnose the issues he has been having.
We have been hoping that all the changes in food and medicine and herbs where going to help Jasper get better.

Jasper has been diagnosed with Degenerative Myelopathy
We are unsure how long we will have our smiley Jasper with us, it will be just a fraction of the time we had hoped to have him in our family.
We will give  him the best care we can and keep him happy.

I  have always wanted a Great Dane and I feel fortunate that Jasper has been ours. We have experience the wonder of him, we have been thrilled by growth and changes we have seen. When we adopted him he was pretty void of personality and flinched a lot. He now smiles and actively seeks attention, he even is playing.He loves his family and loves when he gets to visit or be visited by family and friends. He has loved his many visits by our friends here!

Right now we feel devastated by this news and thought it would be easier to write this than call.

I placed a picture of Jasper above. (if someone can attach the video of him playing it would mean a lot, I could not figure this out.) We have a really wonderful video of Jasper playing with his toy horse this weekend. Please enjoy, we sure did!  (Joel and Michelle glad we could share this together!)

I have attached some links to provide you with information about this disease.

http://www.caninegeneticdiseases.net/DM/basicDM.htm

http://www.tops-vet-rehab.com/injuries.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_degenerative_myelopathy#Symptoms

http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/caninehealthdogs/a/VVP_degenmyel2.htm

Our hearts are heavy with sadness of this news but we are looking forward to the time we have Jasper with us.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Carl & Melissa
Fritz & Bogart& Jasper
& "The girls"

[Grampa]

Post

[Polpetta]

Thanks 

[elyse]

brimo & polpetta..my thoughts are with both of you... my pets are my kids & i completely understand the heartbreak...all of my good thoughts are being sent your way

polpetta - ive always loved great danes. my first best friend in life was a gd named smokey. my parents got him before i was born & he passed away on thanksgiving when i was 12. i refused to celebrate thanksgiving again until i was like 20. i still think about him constantly... i just did a google search on k9 carts & they do make them for large breeds like great danes, so if you think it's something you want to look into & you need help with the cost..pm me.. seriously

[Polpetta]

Thank you so much for your thoughts.

When I was 3 or 4 I spent a lot of time with my parents friends gd's, it must of left a huge impression on me!

Yes, they are my boys, I still call them my puppies. I can totally understand your reaction to TG with such a loss.

We will see how this progress... we have no idea how slow or fast this will happen.
He is most likely in the mid stage hopefully just the beginning of mid stage but we are not sure.

I found a harness that a lot of people use... I am short and he is tall so I think I would have to use it more like a purse over my shoulder. I don't know how it will work? I came across a rear harness too, I will have to talk to the vets again because I will need to find out which would give him better support and is realistic for me to use. I walk all three boys at once. I have a lot of investigating to do. I think it what we need depends on his specific decline, and that time will show us. Thank you for your offer, that is really nice. 

Right now I am making sure he gets a walk everyday and we keep him trim. He now is wearing a booty for his walks because he drags his right leg and this protects it. Two weeks ago it was only slightly and by mid last week it became a must. Now it seems to be working and no change this week.

We really are just trying to figure things out. We watch them so closely and spend all our time with them Carl says we will know what we have to try and do for him as he declines.

It made me really happy to post his cute picture and video of him playing because he is so so sweet and a bunch of friends on the board have spent time with him and have experienced the good changes in his life since we adopted him. Carl and I always laugh and say that our friends come to hang out with our dogs and then us!   

[Triple J]

Jasper has been diagnosed with Degenerative Myelopathy

That's terrible news...so sorry to hear.  At least it sounds like it isn't a painful disease...and Jasper is very lucky to be with you guys in a happy and loving home.