RIP Pippin, Our Beloved Boy

At 1am last night, E and I got a phone call from my mom. We were dog sitting for a family friend and were just getting ready for bed. My mom was calling to say that Pippin, our 14 year old Sheltie, was coughing up blood on the kitchen floor. He hadn't eaten much that day and she was frantic and wasn't sure what to do. Since we were bringing Milou to the vet today for her shots and there was nothing to be done in the middle of the night, we advised her to clean up, keep him hydrated and keep an eye on him throughout the night. We went to bed not knowing what to expect the next day.

For the past couple months, Pippin has been feeling progressively worse and worse. We brought him into the vet first when he didn't want to jump on the bed. He was prescribed arthritis medication that worked, but seemed to upset his stomach. We brought him back again when he began to gain weight, despite no increase in food, and he was found to have low thyroid and put on thyroid replacement therapy. When he began to cough and pant heavily, he went back a third time and had x-rays taken of his chest and abdomen. We left with four different antibiotics for a lung infection, but these too upset his stomach and made him vomit. We were advised to give him pepcid and introduce the antibiotics one at a time, but his stool remained a little funny. We began researching everything we could get our hands on to determine what was wrong with him. He no longer wanted to go on his walks, he didn't want to eat. 

At 10 this morning, E and I arrived to a quiet but very much alive Pippin. He was clearly under the weather as he had been and there was more blood spray on the floor. Surprisingly, he was very hungry and ate a breakfast of his favorite dehydrated patties soaked in warm water. He laid with us in the backyard in the shade and enjoyed the nice weather. We left for the vet with Pip, Milou and a list of conditions we wanted the vet to test for. My mom took off work and met us there, ready to run some serious blood work and test for everything from heartworms to Cushings disease. We were not letting him go without a fight.

We brought Pip into the exam room and our vet gave us "the look,"the painful, pitying, searching look that means we're in serious trouble. She brought him up onto the table and started dropping phrases like "quality of life" and "best for the dog". She started examining him at his head and by the time she got to his body our stomaches were sinking. She had found a mass, a HUGE grapefruit sized mass in his abdomen. We asked if it could be a lump of fat, he had plenty of those, his breakfast, a bowel obstruction, a swallowed toy. She shook her head and quietly dropped the C bomb, though she might as well have shouted. The cancer had to be aggressive if it hadn't been found on the x-rays or exam the week before. There was no way to treat it, nothing we could do to prolong his life with any quality. He was in pain and we had to do the responsible thing.

My mom had promised my sister L that she wouldn't do anything without her being there. We decided to walk Pip around in the shade and sent E to go pick her up from summer school. We moved outside the vet, at which point my mom began sobbing so loud the vet came out and gave us a tissue box. We called my grandma who cried in the bank line in Oregon. Somehow things always seem worse when we hear grandma cry though I think my mom needed to hear her own mom's voice. We let Pip pee on some trees and lay in the shade while we showered him with pets and love. People stared at us as they walked by, Pip didn't look physically sick so it must have been difficult to understand our sorrow.

E pulled up with L who got out of the car sobbing and threw herself on Pip. If there's anything as bad as listening to your grandma cry, it's seeing your sister cry and we were now all officially a mess. We said our goodbyes, let him enjoy the shade and then brought him back to the vet. When she gave him the sedative it was the most peaceful and comfortable we've seen him in weeks. He hadn't been able to breathe without gasping in so long and he was finally resting easy. It was that moment I think where we really knew that as hard as it was, we had made the right decision. He passed away with our arms around him, stroking his fur and was finally free from pain. 

RIP Pippin

1997 - 2011

You were the best dog ever. We love you so much and will miss you.