She's gone

I almost sent her back to the shelter--she seemed to be too much to handle.  She bit all the time--very sharp bites--and chewed everything.  The shelter suggested feeding her ice cubes or carrots that had been in the freezer to give her things to chew on.  Worked until the ice cubes and carrots ran out.   She ate two TV remotes, my leather cellphone cover (remeber those?), and chewed holes in blankets and in our leather chair.  The day after we brought her home from the shelter, they called to say they thought we should know she bit someone at the shelter.  I'm not sure what we would have done if we'd known that before we brought her home.  But we had her now, and I tried.   But I felt wimpy giving up on her, so we stuck with it--through chewed fingers and furniture, ruined toys and shredded blankets.  Through near-missses and not-so-near misses with other dogs and people she thought looked threatening.  As an adult she was very protective of us, her family, and kept pretty much everyone who came near the house at bay.  But she loved her walks--miles and miles.  Even as her arthritis grew worse, and through two hip replacements (the doggy equivalent thereof).  I always felt safe with her.  And as she got older, we had to comfort her as she grew fearful of lightening and anything that beeped.  But to the end, she tried to protect us.  Despite not having eaten or barely moved from her bed, she got herself up and ran to the door to bark at the mailman for what would turn out to be the last time.  (I managed to stay dry-eyed until that last line.)

And now she's gone.  She was ill for only 5 days--we and the doctor thought her lethargy and lack of appetite was due to her worsening arthritis.  Last Monday she had great difficulty getting up, and didn't have much of an appetite.  The doctor gave her a cortisone shot and prednisone pills, and we hoped they would make her feel better.  Took a few days, but she did seem to perk up--ate from her bowl, and went on her usual morning, afternoon and evening walks.  Not as far as she often would walk, but good walks nonetheless.  And still on the lookout for every scrap of food she could find.  But then Friday she wasn't moving again.  When I tried to hand-feed her, she took a few bites, then turned her head away from me when I tried to get her to eat more.  Like she was trying to tell me she was fading away.  We planned to take her to the vet again on Saturday if she didn't seem better by the morning.  But she never made it.  And instead on Saturday morning my husband made the sad, final trip to the vet.