My dog died.
My grandmother's dog, Loki, (essentially, my dog as well) died yesterday.
I woke up. I heard Loki breathing loudly. I investigated the source of the sound and found it to be in the computer room. The door to the room was closed but not tightly. The waste basket and a few things had been knocked over but I could not immediately see Loki. I think that, for some reason, he went into this room and then somehow pushed the door closed, perhaps becoming agitated and knocking things down in the room. There are twin beds in this room and there is a small nightstand in between them.
With a closer look, I found that Loki was hiding under the nightstand. I thought that I might have some difficulty removing him from under this as he was sort of wedged in there (since this is a far too small nightstand for a dog this size to crawl under) but I was able to do it. I tried to get him to move but he exhibited a great deal of bilateral weakness in the back legs. He also exhibited extreme apathy. His breathing seemed somewhat distressed. He'd make an odd sort of groan every minute or so. He did not otherwise seem to be in pain (though he might have simply been too apathetic to show it if he had been in pain).
I picked him up and carried him downstairs fearing that he might otherwise try to follow and, in his current state, fall downstairs. In retrospect he probably was apathetic enough that he would not have chosen to follow but I guess he would have had to come down eventually anyway. I left him on the kitchen floor (linoleum type flooring).
I really had expected him to perk up enough to attempt to eat but he did not. If anything, I could no longer even prompt him to try to stand up. I even offered a cheese doggie treat (which he seemed to like a lot in the past) but he showed no interest in it whatsoever. I moved him over to the living room unto a rug because I figured that might be friendlier flooring than the kitchen flooring. I left him in lying belly down with his back legs in a somewhat unnatural position.
I went back upstairs and informed my grandmother that Loki was not well and that she should call the veterinarian soon after I left for school. I went back downstairs and he was in the same position I had left him but sleeping and with normal seeming breathing. I went upstairs to the bathroom and took a shower.
When I got out of the bathroom, I saw that it was time for me to leave for class. I went back downstairs and saw Loki lying on his side in a more relaxed looking position. It was much like the way he would have often lain in the past except for the fact that he was actually stiff and not breathing. I imagine he must have arrived to that position in some sort of weird, dying paroxysm.
I went back upstairs and told my grandmother that Loki had died. I thought that I was late for class and I left leaving the dog in the living room. I felt like shit about having done that. I guess I had not been thinking very clearly as it only would have taken me 5 minutes (and, as it turned out, I arrived at class with five minutes to spare) to take him out of the living room.
When I got back, I took him out of the living room and put him outside. Then I went to bed for a while (that's just what I felt like doing). Then I dug a hole next to a rose bush and put him in there. It was dark by the time I stopped digging. I added some dirt back to the hole but I did not finish it that day.
Today, I finished putting back the soil that I had dug out yesterday. I even planted an eggplant that I had overwintering indoors on top of the pile of soil. I put one of those
Wall-O-Water things around it and I am hoping that that will be enough to counteract the nuttyness inherent in planting such a plant while there is still snow around.
Hopefully whoever buys the farm place will leave the rose bush alone and appreciate it. Personally, being dumped in a hole next to a rose bush seems a much better way to be disposed of than being tossed in a coffin and put into some idiotic concrete vault. Either that or being ground up into a nitrogen supplement to make some hippie type happy about his harvest [enter Charlton Heston: "Green Bud is people!"].
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