It will be gaining a new member tomorrow evening and I’ll just warn them that she is spunky.
The end of September when we brought Athena in for her yearly checkup, the bloodwork uncovered some bad levels of various things in her blood. When we brought her in she was normal. All indication were that she had renal (Kidney) failure.
She spent three days during business hours at the vet on IV to try and clear out the toxins and get her levels under control. Every night she came back stressed with a bad cough that kept her up most the night. The new blood results showed some better numbers, but not good enough. We took her up 2 more days for IV.
After all of that with no real improvement to where we may be able to manage the disease, we decided to bring her home for hospice care. It was tough. Stage 4 renal failure is bad and will take a dog pretty quick. Our vet prepped us by saying there would be good days and bad days. I assumed we were looking at 1 or 2 weeks to spend with her.
So we were sent home with meds and fluids and a dog that was not as energetic as she was before the check up.
Every day I worked with her in the morning and the evening to get the meds in her and get her to eat the special kidney food. She didn’t take a liking to the meds and I had to use a syringe to administer it orally. Also everyday we had to give her sub q fluids, it was something something she initially tolerated. Eventually she got better, way better, she was normal, tail wagging high, barking, aggressively begging for treats with a lot of energy. She also started begging me for car rides and walks by standing by the garage door and I obliged. She even started eating the meds on her own, no more struggling with the syringe and her fighting.
Back to the fluids. If you are not familiar with Subcutaneously delivering fluids in a dog, you basically have a IV set up with a needle on the end. Every day I would lift the loose skin above her shoulders and poke her with the needle to deliver the fluids. Not very fun and I’d get anxiety when we first started doing it. Not only that I started by delivering sitting on the floor which eventually screwed up my back arching it for 10-20 minutes at a time. We were able to adjust how we did it and my back recovered, however Athena was growing increasingly unwilling to do it. She’d struggle, whimper and scratch at her back afterward. Eventually Thanksgiving weekend (almost 2 months) we decided with her shaking and struggling it wasn’t worth putting her through it with whatever time remained.
As the toxins have built up in her, her breath has started smelling faintly like a old stall that hasn’t been flushed. I can’t imagine how horrible that must make her feel.
4 days ago Sunday she started going downhill fast. Her appetite is lost, not drinking much, you can tell she is uncomfortable and probably in some pain. She’s pretty much just hanging in the bed by the door. Again, I can’t imagine and I don’t want it to be how I remember her. So tomorrow we decided is the day we end the pain and suffering.
I do feel very blessed that we found out when we did and were able to get about 10 weeks of the Athena I know and love. If I didn’t know better I would have thought she miraculously had healed.
So now for the happy stuff. I helped my wife (New GF at the time) buy Athena. We drove all the way up to north of Park Rapids and Tuffy who was 4 at the time came along too. She was a little ball of fur wearing a tiny T-shirt. We stopped for out first of what would be many DQ pup cups over the years.
Athena has always been the pack leader of our 3 dogs. She would put Apollo in his place from time to time. She used to have really long flowing hair, but we ended up giving her groomed and a short haircut down here the last couple of years, which I was initially wasn’t sure of, but I grew to like.
She absolutely loves snow and ice. Winters she would plop down on the snow on the coldest days and I’d have to beg her to come into the house. In spring she would cling to the last snow bank every year. Then she discovered coolers with ice. She would jump in them when you were not looking, otherwise I would set her in there or I’d put ice in a shallow plastic container for her to lay on.
At some point we taught her to point to her belly or pray for a belly rub. This evolved over the years to her pointing to her belly any time I asked without me giving a command. The fact that I rarely turned her down reinforced it and it became a pretty constant deal. That’s probably going to be one of those things I will reminisce and remember over and over.
She is a very smart girl. If you paid attention she would tell you things. It may have been a lassie like running from one place to you and back or pointing with her head.
I think she likes me, but man does she love her mom. Probably because her mom sets rules and boundaries and isn’t a pushover. She will run around the house in a panic looking for her mom if she doesn’t know where she is. When her mom was gone or on vacation she would just stare at the door and bark at any sound that might mean she was home.
Besides ice, she loved little kiddy pools. She’d lay in those on hot days. Then we found out she loves to swim when we were in the keys for our wedding.
What I may end up missing the most is her hugs. If I was sitting down, especially in the lanai, whe would walk up to my legs on her own and rub the side of her face on them and then just press her face against them.
I swear she would smile at me. There are so many other things.
Yes, I am going to miss that girl, but I am so grateful for having her in our lives these last 11 years.
Some day I’ll see you at that IDO dog park in the sky my little Athena.
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So I know what what both you and Pug are going through now. My condolences. 
