A very sad weekend for us.

Yesterday morning we had to take the heart-breaking decision to say a final goodbye to our gorgeous boy George at 14 years and 1 month. He’d been struggling for some time – his back legs were very weak, but he carried on manfully right up to the very end. After two nights spent sitting up with him clearly in discomfort I noticed this morning when he went out for his walk that his urine was bright red – clearly something drastically wrong. We rushed him to the vets but it seemed he had suffered some sort of kidney failure and we really had no alternative.  Cue floods of tears all round!

I think every dog owner thinks their pet is special but George was really something different. We rescued him at 18 months old, returned to the breeder by a couple who had bought him as a pup with two Jack Russell terriers who started attacking him as he grew and he was too laid back to resist them. From the moment he came into the house he was not a minute’s trouble; it seemed like he’d been with us for ever. He loved his trips away in the caravan and had joined us on most of the main Lakeland fells and most of the North Cornwall coast where we spend so much time. At 9 he was diagnosed with dispersed cancer but the vets got him through that. At 12 he started having epileptic fits but again the vets managed to control these. He never once appeared “unhappy” and throughout both these illnesses he always greeted us in the morning with an enthusiastic wagging tail.

We are both devastated although we accept that we had no fair alternative for him. Our other boy Harry has never been an only dog so it will be interesting to see how he copes.  I am sure all our fellow dog owners will know how we feel; our lives will be poorer for his loss.

I am sorry this has been such a long post but writing it has been therapeutic in a way for me – it’s helped me remember all the happy days we had with George. He will be very sadly missed.