Gus

With great sadness...I have to tell you all that we lost a wonderful family member and friend last week.

Gus was such a wonderful and sweet dog...Smudge's best buddy and babysitter.

His passing was a great shock to us and it is still very hard for me to believe he is gone.

We noticed that Gus was slowing down a bit and contributed it to his older age.

He would have been 10 in October and he also had some leg issues that we thought might be causing some of the slowness.  He had to have both legs operated on when he was two, due to cruciate ligament problems.  It has also been extremely hot here this summer and that was another thing we imagined was bothering him.  We even took him in for a check up just about a month ago to discuss his age and leg issues.  He seemed as healthy as a horse....other than just walking a little slower. 

I took Gus and Smudge down to my neighbor's small pond for a swim one day and 

Gus got right in and paddled around.  Smudge on the sideline playing in the mud..

We walked back home and...again he was a little slow, but nothing that concerned me other than that.

The next day....he would not eat...Gus never ever passed up a meal and would jump up and down in anticipation...I knew something was really wrong.  We took him to the vet immediately...thinking maybe he had a kidney stone.  He had problems with that in the past and that was the only other time in his life that he had turned down a meal.  When we got him to our wonderful vet... she told us that he looked a bit dehydrated.  This surprised me because he had been drinking as normal.  We gave him fluids and did some blood work...the blood work did not look good.  High white cell count and low red.....

Our vet wanted to do an x-ray to check him out a bit further and she decided to keep him overnight.

The x-ray revealed some sort of mass on his heart.  Our vet already had suspicions of this...a type of 

cancer that grows on the blood vessels on the heart.  She told me the name...but I can't remember...I was just so shocked and devastated.  The tumor is very aggressive and grows at a fast rate.  It ruptures the blood vessel and then the heart and surrounding area fills with blood. Making it very hard for the heart to work....She suggested we get an ultrasound just to be positive...we did....it was....and we made the decision at that point to let Gus go....In two days time he went from swimming with his 

friend to not having the strength to stand.....

We miss you buddy......