If you follow me on facebook, you are aware of how the last couple of weeks have gone. So very busy with school starting and all that goes with that. I’m also taking Soccer league pictures last week and this week. On top of all that, Thursday August 5th, Rob had come home for lunch and wondered why he wasn’t greeted by Rosie. I had remembered letting her outside a couple hours before, but she usually makes it well known that she’s ready to come in. We sent the boys out to see if they could find her and she was up under the deck, where she loves to lay where it’s shady and cool. The problem was she didn’t come out when called.
Thinking this was just a flair of up of her back problems that have been going on for a few months. For those of you who don’t know, dogs like Corgis, with short legs and long backs can have issues with herniated/pinched nerves. This causes them pain, paralysis, and loss of control of bowels, etc. We had this problem with our last Corgi, Jenny. So a few months ago when she was acting differently, we pretty much self diagnosed her, but took her to the vet to make sure. Turns out we were right. The treatment we chose for her in this case was crating. The only effect she was having was pain. She still had functionality of her legs and bowels. Stairs are also a really bad thing for dogs with this issue. Super bad news for us because we live in a split-level house with stairs in and out! Anyway, after some crating for a few days we saw a huge improvement in her and was able to let her live pretty normally. We tried to limit her travel up and down the stairs as much as we could.
So anyway, after bringing her back in that Thursday after finding her under the deck, she wouldn’t walk around hardly at all and she stopped eating. We brought her with us to our friends’ house in Atlanta, who we spent that weekend with. After getting back Monday, I took her to vet. She of course was dehydrated. She was hooked to a life-saving IV drip for several days and finally started to walk and eat. She came home Thursday, Aug. 12. She was walking and eating, but not really. She never finished 1 bowl of food over the weekend.
Yesterday when we got home for church, she was the worst I’ve ever seen her. She was pretty much paralyzed and we could tell nothing was going to make her better. Unfortunately, she suffered her last 24 hours. I sat next to her much of the day and evening to adjust her when she got uncomfortable, since she couldn’t do it herself.
Today Rob and I took her to the vet and the vet was shocked since she had responded decently last week, but the vet said she may have suffered a stroke or something with no return. We stayed with her as they put her to sleep. We brought her home and we will be burying her tomorrow so the boys can have some closure to the situation.
Ugh! You just don’t realize how much you expect to be met with such enthusiasm. I know especially for Rob, who Rosie would always greet with true excitement. Today, as I did stuff around the house, I would hear a noise or catch something in the corner of my eye and my mind would think, must be Rosie, then I would realize it wasn’t really her. As hard as this is going to be, I’m going to be listing all the memories of Rosie that come to mind. Memories of rosie…
-loved popcorn.
-loved candy. She was so sneaky. No matter how well I thought I hid candy from the kids for like Easter or Valentine’s Day, Rosie would find it!
-was a bit OCD about marking her territory.
-loved to go for walks.
-loved to lay in her bed. We had one in the living room and one our bedroom.
-scared of thunderstorms.
-was a bit ditzy.
-hated having her nails cut.
-hated the camera.
-started to thump her leg as of late when we would pet her right below her neck. It was so funny.
Other facts about her…
We got Rosie after buying our first house in 2000. Drew was 2. Rosie was 3. Rosie was here to welcome Alex as a newborn. She would always get a concerned look when I would let him cry too long. Rosie came from award winning show dog parents, but her frame never grew to the accurate size, so she could never be a show dog. This was fine with us we had no plans of showing her.
Well, I hope all this makes sense. This was a hard post write……
Click here to see Rosie memorial page.
