A VERY SAD HAPPENING

My husband and I had spent last Friday through Sunday in Franklin, NC, with our oldest daughter and her family.  It was a beautiful, relaxing week-end.  The weather was perfect, and the fall colors were barely beginning to show.  We had entrusted the care and feeding of our two dogs to my husband's brother, who always does a good job.  Our smallest dog "Feisty" ( a Feist) is older and lately she had slowed down a lot.  The vet had checked her out and said that X-Rays indicated that she had arthritis and put her on some canine arthritis pills, which had seemed to help her.  But while we were gone, we got a call that she wasn't eating much and seemed weak.  When we got home yesterday about 4:00PM, she was laying in our yard close to the back door, and when I first saw her,  I thought she was dead, but when I got to her, she had very rapid, labored breathing, and, although her eyes were open, she barely responded to me.  I hurriedly rushed her to the emergency vet clinic, where blood work revealed that her red blood cell count and platelets were so low that she wouldn't make it through the night without a blood transfusion.  They started the transfusion right away, but it was too late.  My sweet little doggie died.  The final diagnosis was Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA),  which is apparently the most common cause of anemia in dogs, although I'd never heard of it.  The dog's red blood cells attack and destroy themselves as if they were foreign cells, and, over time, the dog becomes so anemic that they cannot survive.  I "Googled" this disease, and poor little Feisty had all the symptoms :  fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, blood in the stool (so the vet said).  Of course old age can cause this too, and that's what I thought the problem was.

I've shed many tears this past 24 hours, and I know many of you know how it feels to lose a beloved pet.  Each time a pet dies they take a little piece of your heart with them.  I feel better today.  My husband buried her on the farm next to Granny's little dog "Cookie", and I know I'll put some sort of grave stone at the site - maybe I'll even plant a rose bush there.  We do still have another dog,  Nick, who was Feisty's best friend.  He keeps looking for her and seems worried, but with some extra attention, I'm hoping that will pass.  Life goes on, and so will we all.