Well, this is a day I've somewhat anticipated for a couple of years. Mrs. S in CA noticed last night that our dog, Flopsy, hadn't eaten all of her food. When I went out this morning to check on her to see if she needed to be taken to the vet, I found Flopsy lying on the ground in the open (she has a dog house), barely responsive. I carried her to my car (she nipped at me some) and drove her to the vet. Flopsy had been increasingly arthritic and going blind and deaf the last 2 or 3 years; evidently her body started shutting down the last couple of days. At the vet's, she was still barely responsive, and her breathing was labored. We decided that the time was right to put her to sleep. She was a little more than 15 years old.
I'm more of a cat person than a dog person, but Flopsy was a faithful pet. When she and our children were much younger, she used to run circles around our kids in the back yard. She was an Australian Shepherd mix, and that was her herding instinct. When Flopsy was a puppy, our adult cat, who had just had kittens, used to stalk Flopsy. We gave our cat to my parents, who needed a cat to control rodents on their farm, and kept a couple of her kittens, who grew up with Flopsy. The last couple of years, we had to be careful about leaving the gate to our yard open, as she would slowly wander out and down the street. It was amazing how easy it was to not notice her until she was a block away.
I'm not one to anthropomorphize animals, even much loved pets, but a part of our life left us this morning.
