Here is Bode the day before yesterday eating acorns. Yummy, lip-smacking good! We hate to knock on wood, but right now you would never know by looking at this dog either by his behavior or his demeanor that anything was wrong with him. He is acting like his old self.  We take one day at a time. That’s all we can do.

Here is Bart, doing what he loves best. I caught him just as he came out of the water from having a good wade.

Our sweet Milli is gone. The house is quieter, the dogs somewhat subdued this morning without her adding to the barking ruckus that starts our daily routine. Other than teaching her children [Daisy and Bode] a few bad habits that she started at their birth, she was an easy dog to have around. Her sad, cow-eyes could speak volumes when she turned her gaze on you. Yesterday, that gaze said I can’t go on, please do something to help me. The spark and twinkle was just not there. Just before the doctor came in to administer the dose that would help her on her way, she gave us one last silly-Milli smile, but it only lasted a second.

Milli was diagnosed with Wobbler’s disease last year at about this time. We kept her on a dose of prednisone to help her walk. She did very well and managed to get around just fine, and happily. About a month ago we noticed a change in her. She wasn’t looking quite so good and was having more difficulty with the stairs. We chalked it up to the pred taking its toll on her body and muscles. Over the past week or so she had taken to laying outside by the pool for long periods of time, and when we called her to come in she ignored us. It took a lot of coaxing to get her inside. Then 3 days ago she refused her breakfast, something Milli never does. She ate her dinner meal with gusto. The next morning she refused breakfast again and would not even take a biscuit. Again, that evening she ate her meal. But, Saturday morning I had to hand feed her chicken because she would not eat anything else. By that afternoon her gums and inside her eyes were very pale, and I knew it was not going to be good news. She started with diarrhea, another bad sign. She quit drinking.

Sunday morning when Rick let the dogs out before we took his parents to the airport at 4:00 a.m., all the dogs came back inside except for Milli. She didn’t answer our calling her name. Rick took the flashlight and starting searching the fenced woods part of our yard. He finally found her just lying in the woods next to the fence, almost like she was trying to crawl off somewhere to die. We managed to get her in the house before we left. When we got home it was obvious she was going downhill fast. We took her to the ER vet. They gave her fluids and got her somewhat stable and did blood work and a few x-rays. They showed she was bleeding internally, most likely from a tumor on her spleen, and more than likely hemangiosarcoma. Surgery could be done to remove the spleen, but there was a 66% chance it was malignant, and in her condition it was risky at best. Prognosis if things went normally would only buy her another couple of months.  We knew our choice would be to let her go.

Join me in celebrating her life. I am going to try and capture the memories of her that stick in my mind the most, along with some photos.

She was the most beautiful puppy we’ve ever had. Just breathtaking. [See her as a puppy here.]
She growled at me the very first time she saw me peeking into her Sherpa bag at the airport!
She had cow’s eyes.
She was an easy whelper; a good mamma.
She was silly.
She loved to roll over on her back and kick her back feet in the air. Belly rubs!
She was lazy.

One of the cutest things she used to do was while we were at the cabin. Before she was diagnosed with Wobbler’s, she stopped going on the long walks at the cabin with us. She would start out with us, but somewhere along the way she’d take a short cut home. She would be waiting at the back door, wagging away, when we got back with the rest of the crew. Pretty soon she stopped going at all and just stayed at the cabin. She would roll over on her back when she saw us coming and kick her feet in the air, and wiggle her body back and forth—all while upside down. Very cute.

Here is Milli in her prime.

Her special name was Cookie. I don’t know why but Rick started calling her Cookie/Cookie Monster. It stuck. Some other names where:
Milly-enia
Silly Milly
Sniff, wiggle, fart and blow [of which she did all at the same time!]
Cow dog [mostly because of her eyes, but also because she was cow-like at times]

Daisy can’t figure out why she isn’t here. Daisy, Milli and Bode all had this “game” they played when let out of the house. Milli taught it to them when they were pups. This is the bad habit I was referring to above. We never liked it, but couldn’t really stop them from doing it. They would bark, bite and snap at each other [around the legs, neck, tail] until one of them got tired. In the past few years Milli was an unwilling participant. Today when I let them out Daisy just stood there staring at the door, waiting for her mother to come out and play the “game”. But she didn’t come. She looked up at me as if to say ‘well, where is she? isn’t she coming out?’ It brought the tears to my eyes once again.

Sweet dreams, dear Cookie. When you see Indy, Mira, Margaux, Monty and Heidi, tell them we still miss them and think about them often.

I (Rick) just posted some slow-motion movies of dogs drinking at my website. You might find these interesting.

Dog’s Drinking Slowly

We didn’t get any takers for our contest to guess which dog would be next, so how many of you guessed Bode? Alex? I swear, just when we thought the entire day had gone by without a single dog in the pool, our hopes were splashed [instead of dashed] by yet another dog/pool incident. Rick had just fed the dogs their evening meal and let them outside. I was in the office and heard them barking which is isn’t quite normal at this time of day. I went into the kitchen and the pitch of their barking changed. Not the dogs’ normal barking. We looked at each other and we both thought POOL! Rick looked out the kitchen window and said DOG IN POOL! We rushed outside to see that the solar blanket was a total mess and pulled halfway up the length of the pool. There was Bode, treading water frantically in the deep end right up next to the edge. He looked ready to go under, so I didn’t get the camera and Rick hurried over to him to lift him out. Rick said his eyes were as big as saucers. If we hadn’t thought we was in jeopardy of going under, Rick would have led him by the collar to a good “getting out” place, but it wasn’t obvious that he was okay with the whole thing. Poor Jo-Jos!

It was only when I was toweling Bode off that we realized that Alex was ALSO soaking wet up to his belly. Hmm…something fishy here. I wish we knew what had happened since we think they both ended up on the solar blanket somehow and Alex just managed to get off before the blanket gave way. I guess they need constant supervision until they all go in the drink at least once. I know you must be getting tired of hearing about the dogs vs the pool, and frankly we are getting a bit weary with worry as well. But, hey, I think we are making some kind of progress since we haven’t seen the same dog end up in the pool for the second time! Err…uhm…maybe I shouldn’t say that just yet as I may be tempting fate. Or the Dog Water Gods. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.