Texas Lady

Jolie drinking her last puppywhip—me in tears

Today we said goodbye to Jolie.  After 3 years of multiple medications by mouth, subcutaneous fluids and nebulizer treatments we could no longer treat Jolie’s many illnesses.  She had a COPD-like lung disorder, congestive heart failure, renal failure and her liver was damaged.  Even with fluid pills three times a day she could no longer release the fluid from her belly and lungs, and her heart couldn’t pump all that liquid.  She was straining to just breathe, to just live from one moment to the next.  She was weak.  She would stand unsteadily and fall over and be unable to get back up.  Her belly was bloated and since she had a heart murmur and congestive heart failure we could no longer do surgery to remove the many growths on her body.  I suspected that some of them were very ugly on the inside and probably contributed to her ills.  I took her to the vet Wednesday and they did more blood tests, injected Lasix to release some of the fluid in her belly so she could breathe, and told us that we need to make the hard decision of when to let her go.

Originally we were going to plan to euthanize her Monday morning but then she was so sick yesterday that it just broke our hearts.  Even though we knew we were going to miss her and we would cry a lot to lose her, we also knew that we had to help her leave her pain behind. At about 11 AM today we took her to our sweet vet’s office and told JoJo goodbye, how much we loved her and how much we’d miss her.  Then they gave a shot to relax her while we stroked her and talked to her.  She was so tired and ill that it took effect immediately.  When we were both ready we told them to give the last shot that stopped her heart.  We continued rubbing her and talking to her even after we knew she couldn’t hear us anymore, but it was hard to let her go.  We didn’t doubt for a minute that we’d made the right decision but it was still hard to let go of her.  It’s almost like losing a child.

So now we’re down to seven dogs: 5 Chis, Bandit and Daisy.  They were all very subdued when we came home without Jolie.  There’s always about a 2 week adjustment period when we add or subtract one dog that they are very quiet, not knowing where they fit in the new pack hierarchy.   We gathered up 4 bags of medications to take back to the vet to donate for another animal who might need them.  We changed the crates around so that Jolie’s crate went to Zoe who had adopted her as her mother and spent a lot of time cuddling there with Jolie.  That allowed Dusty full-reign over the crate that he had been sharing with Zoe so that now each dog has his very own big crate without having to share.  I don’t know if it’ll stay that way or if we’ll downsize them.  We’ll just have to see how it works out.

We gave away the small fish tank; the guy is supposed to come pick it up in the morning, so the living room will have a new face by tomorrow this time.  Now that Daisy and Bandit are playing so much and a lot of it in the house, they have been bumping into the little fish tank a lot; I keep expecting them to knock the whole damned thing over in the floor, water, fish, glass and all.  We thought it safe to give away before the disaster happens and someone two or 4 legged gets cut with glass or hit with falling furniture.  Our house is too small to have 2 big/medium dogs playing in the house so we have to make it safe for all again.  May end up getting rid of the 55 gallon tank, too.  I’d like to have a tank though, maybe a hexagon again when Blondie kicks the bucket.  We’ll see.  We just need to make more room to live in these days.

Good bye again to our sweet Jolie girl.  We’ll miss you so much, baby doll!!!!!!!