Rick's Ramblings

Saturday, January 31, 2004

We Lost Mira This Week

We lost Miracle this week. She had been doing so well lately—very energetic and happy. Then starting last Saturday, she “crashed”. She wouldn’t eat, she kept throwing up, she wouldn’t drink anything and she had a hard time getting around. We had a vet appointment for her on Monday scheduled, but we went in a couple of hours early. After some x-rays and an examination, it became clear that she had a particularly aggressive form of cancer—not uncommon in Bernese Mountain Dogs.

We almost put her down at the vet’s, but she seemed to be doing okay and she made it clear to us that she wanted to come home. So, they gave her some fluids and some shots to calm her nausea and we brought her home. She was so happy she tried to jump out of the truck! She wouldn’t let me carry her, so she walked to the door. But, she couldn’t make it any further. I carried her to a favorite place in our hearth room where she slept comfortably for a couple of hours. Then, she got uncomfortable and tried to move around some. Finally, she stopped breathing and quietly passed on.

Mira is the third dog we’ve lost to cancer in the past year. It has not been a good year for us.

She was born in France on April 5, 1996—so she was not quite 8 years old.

I have a friend that has a theory about why animals do so well for so long and then “crash” so quickly. Click “more” to read it.

Apparently, animals that live in herds, flocks or packs will drive any obviously sick animal away to die. This is because a sick or weak member of the community will draw predators. My friend raises birds and knows this is true for birds. So, animals learn not to show their sickness or weakness so they can stay a part of their community. However, the body can only compensate up to a point and when the animal can no longer compensate for the illness, they get very sick very fast.

Sounds reasonable to me.

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