I let Paxil go a couple hours ago. She would not have survived the night on her own. We just sped the process up a bit for her.
Her vet, my friend Candace, thinks Paxil had a mass in her stomach. She could feel something when she examined her. She thinks it started to bleed causing a clot in her spinal cord or her brain. She offered to do x-rays and some tests to determine where the clot was, but that knowledge would not have changed the outcome. Paxil had no nerve function in her back end, no reflexes, weak pulse. She was slipping away. Whatever it was that made her my Paxil was already gone.
I sat in her kennel with her for a couple hours, until she started to struggle to breathe. Then I asked Candace to help her cross. She offered no resistance and was gone before the injection was finished.
Paxil changed my whole life. The very first time I stood behind a dog team, she was my lead dog. When she retired this season, I considered it myself. There will never be another like her in my team.
I will miss her yelling at me to hurry up with her dinner; how she always waited until I got comfy to demand I fill her water bowl immediately; kisses from her spotted tongue; woooing at me in the yard; racing Sleet to the door to get back inside; I hate the empty blanket just inside the door beside the woodstove. She claimed that spot as hers the first night she was here and refused to sleep anywhere else.
Rest well, my girl. Thank you...
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