The post I’ve always dreaded to do. Letting everyone know that our dearest little girl Meg has left us for the rainbow bridge.
A week ago today, we made the decision to have Meg put to sleep, after a very quick and sudden turn in her quality of life. I always expected it to be her heart problems or throat/lung problems, or the cancer coming back, but in the end it was just cognitive dysfunction – doggy dementia- getting a bit too severe, mixed in with it generally being the end? Over the weekend she had some very runny poops, on Monday night while trying to settle her down to sleep (sleep regulation issues were one of her dementia symptoms) we noticed she wouldn’t eat a snack. Tuesday she seemed mostly herself, but still wouldn’t eat and had started to heavily vocalise (whining, howling) whenever she couldn’t move around or if we picked her up, she got worse throughout the day, as if all she knew what to do was aimlessly pace, and if she couldn’t do it she was distressed. With no interest in her dinner, we decided to order her chicken nuggets. A refusal of nuggets would definitely be a sign something wasn’t right. She tried nibbling at them, cried about the fact she couldn’t have them, but she just wouldn’t eat them herself. If we got them in her mouth she would badly chew them up and swallow them, but we knew things weren’t good when she vomited them back up half an hour later. We booked her in for the first vet appointment the next day, still hopeful it wasn’t too bad. She got worse as the night went on, she eventually refused water, would cry and whine and yell, anytime she wasn’t asleep. Even in the last 24 hours it seemed she had lost a tremendous amount of weight.
We took her into the vets that morning knowing what the outcome would likely be. Any quality of life had gone. Us and the vet decided to have her doped up on some drugs, took her home to spend the day saying goodbye, and then at 3:30 we took her back to the vet for the last time.
I’m very sure that we made the right decision, even though it was a very painful one, but I do wish we had more time with our little tripawd. I’m so grateful that we had this community to get us through her diagnosis, her amputation, her recovery, and her life moving forward. I don’t think we or her would have done as well without this help and support. We had our girl for 5 years and 3 months, and for about 4 years and 6 months she was on three legs. It sounds strange but I’m sad we no longer have a tripawd, for people to be in awe of and for people to ask questions about. I’m sad we don’t have our tripawd.
There are about 1000 things I’m going to miss and am already missing about Meg, but her overall presence in our house no longer being there has been very tough to adjust to. I’m thrilled we have so many photos and images to look back on, and that we have this blog with all the gorgeous comments to look back on. It is nice to know how well loved Meg was by many, even those her only knew her through a blog about her three legs.
Goodbye my Meggymoo, my sweetest girl, I look forward to seeing you again at the Rainbow Bridge
