Farewell Wee One

Today's dreary weather (more thunderstorms interspersed throughout the day) seemed absolutely sunny compared to the sight that awaited me when I arrived home from work - our approaching-ancient Brussels Griffon, Heather, had passed away during the day. Heather was a rescue - so perhaps she was actually ancient instead of just approaching it. The more I think about it - the more I wonder if she may have personally known Noah. I had been curious about Brussels since seeing them at shows when I first began exhibiting Borzoi. Their little faces reminded me of the 1950s Wolfman I would catch glimpses of when staying up late at night in my high school years sneaking peeks at forbidden horror movies.

Heather was already an adult when she came to live with me. She used to have a torrid love affair with my male Borzoi Nigel - and he certainly thought she was the bee's knees. It was fascinating, in a train wreck kinda way, to watch them flirt and coo over each other. Heather would circle around his front legs, brushing up against him at times like a cat, her nubby tail going back and forth, and her head turned up towards him, sometimes licking at the air as if to say "C'mon big boy!"

The first signs of her aging were her eyes - clouding up and eventually getting a blueish cast. Then she started to lose a bit of her hearing - then pretty much all of it. A few years ago our vet's diagnosed an inoperable mass in her chest cavity - but she seemed comfortable enough. She had also started to accumulate a bit of fluid in her chest, so Lasix was prescribed. She looked like hell - but she was still truckin' along and cleaned up her dish every night. The senility seemed to set in, and she lost more of her sight, occasionally becoming lost in the yard when out to potty - just 10 feet from the door. But her bowl was always licked clean and she would at times, bark her displeasure at whatever unforgivable sound she may have heard.

Yesterday, the food was untouched. We talked about her options and if it was time to go ahead and assist her passing with a visit to the vet, since she no longer seemed to really be "there". I opted to wait another day...just in case she was having an "off day". But no...she was ready...and she took matters into her own little paws.

I guess we were thankful for the recent storms in that the ground was soft. Victor dug a hole in one of the little landscaped areas and she was laid to rest this evening. Now back with her beloved Nigel.