Our beloved Springer Spaniel, Oscar died early morning on Wednesday 2nd March.
He was very sick on Sunday evening, so I took him to the vet first thing Monday. She gave him a good examination & we decided to try him with an anti-sickness injection. However by Tuesday I was very worried about him not recovering so got him to the vet again. She gave him another examination and a pain killing injection and thought that he possibly had either something that he'd eaten which had got stuck somewhere in his digestive tract or it was pancreatitis, so I booked him in for X-rays & blood test for the Wednesday morning. But unfortunately he didn't make it and died in his bed. The Vet said that he most likely died from peritonitis due to something being stuck in digestion, for him to have gone that quickly.
He was a lovely boy, very friendly & a typical working type of Springer. We rescued him when he was around 9 months old, he'd been quite literately dumped at the side of a canal so we took him on. He was a scruffy little thing but extremely lovable & enjoyed running around the footpaths & a good splash in water, but he was never much of a swimmer the way you'd expect a spaniel to swim. The picture of him was taken last October at Lynton in Devon, he looks nice & clean there because he'd just had his hair cut before we went on holiday and he had been splashing around in the stream.
Our other dog Indie seems to be OK, although when the chap from the crematorium came back this morning with his ashes she hid upstairs, so whether she remembered him taking Oscar away & thought he was going to take her I don't know, but otherwise she seems to be OK. In fact we had a lovely longer than usual walk this afternoon, a few months ago she was having a lot of problems with her back legs, but other than being a bit stiff if she lies down for a length of time she seems to be much better now, so hopefully she will carry on for a while yet. Again she's a rescue so we don't really know how old she is, but we think she's probably about 12. In fact we always thought that she would be the one to go first & I think if she had then Oscar might have pined for her.
I'm starting to feel a little more philosophical about it now, we've had enough dogs in our lives for me to know that each one is unique and brings something special to our lives, which non-pet owners can never understand. I try to explain to them that it's like having a child that never grows up, they rely on you every day to look after them, feed them, walk them, keep them clean and give them a safe place to sleep at night, but unlike a child they never become any more independent that having a run off lead. But having not had children I can't imagine how parents would cope with a child dying, it's hard enough to lose a pet. I suppose if you lose a child it will be a hole in your heart for ever more, at least we could get another pet to replace him, but that's not going to happen for a long time or maybe never. The trouble with having pets is that they are such a tie. We have to plan time around their outings & feeding etc. & although they can be left you can't go off on holiday & leave them unless you either have someone to look after them or they are OK with being in kennels & you can find a good one, which we haven't been able to find for many years. The last time we put them in kennels for a couple of nights they both had bad tummies & were very stressed, so we decided that we just won't do it any more.
So goodbye Oscar sweet boy, you never know if there is a heaven or an after-life we may meet again one day
Very sorry
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