# Our dog Lady died.. its just so sudden.



## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

Sorry I don't have any dog forum, I would probably like you guys best anyways. 

One of our 3 German Shepherds, Lady, was dead this morning. T_T

My mom went to put Lady in her kennel this morning and she was not alive. 
She looked like she was sleeping, and my mom went to wake her, but no.
We didn't know what to do, I called my vet.. nobody has any sort of transport service, which sux. The Spca will cremate her and my dad is going to come and help get her to there. We want to find out if they will do a necropsy because there wasn't a sign of anything. I would want to know if its something hereditary or something dangerous in our vast yard. 

My mom got Lady as a mothers day gift back in like, 98?
She was a gorgeous red, black, and tan German shepherd with excellent papers, and from a good breeder. She loved to play shortstop in our childhood backyard baseball games, and liked to take kids out at the knees during football. We came up with "Dog ball" rules, like stop at what base you are closest to and a time-out, for when one of the dogs would get the ball. She would bounce off the walls and plop hard with a loud Boom on her butt or flop over onto her back for a belly rub. She always had a goofy grin and acted like a simple pat on the head was like to a kid going to disney land. She was always a handful, just kinda a goofy nut-ball tornado. 

She had 8 puppies, accidental litter, with my dad's male German shepherd, Sarge, on June 11, 1999. She decided to go into her first heat while we were staying at my aunts for my grandpa dying. I was there for 6 of the puppies being born, after I came home from a 1/2 day at school. The ultrasound found 5 puppies and my mom bought 8 of everything, telling Lady.. "no more than 8, ok?" I still can't believe how that turned out! I kept one of her puppies, he is my dog Ruger, and I love him to pieces! Hes a goofy brat, kinda like a forever toddler. 

A while after the puppies were gone, except mine, Lady started to have dominance issues with Sarge. She would walk up to him and press her mouth down on the back of his neck, randomly. He would stiffen up and stand taller. Then they would scuffle, which we broke up. She wanted to be boss, and Sarge didn't want to back down. So they were stuck in a endless cycle. So Lady became a mostly outside dog, with the boys inside. 

My parents divorced, my mom went and got an apartment. Lady had to go live at my aunt's who also had one of her puppies for a few years. She seemed happy there, she got to run and play every day, there was a creek and she loved that. She chewed on rocks and her teeth got flat. She got attached to my aunt's husband and followed him around the house. 

My dad left the house and my mom moved in. Shortly after, when my aunt was divorcing her husband, she gave Lady back. Lady and Sarge got along just fine for about a week and a half. Then they had a scuffle and Lady became a mostly outside dog again. And thats how she spent the last year or two of her life, until last night or early this morning.

Its just so sudden and I feel stunned mostly, writing this did help me feel better and sadder at the same time. Its just so amazing to me how long she has been around and I never really thought that she would be gone anytime soon. T_T


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

I realized I don't have any digital pictures of her, I wanted to go play with her and take pictures with my digital camera once it got nicer outside. I can't breathe well in the cold, due to asthma, but I wish I had at least tried to, now. 

I'm a little nervous since people say how things die in twos. Our litter box trained house-rabbit Sadie, died in like '95. I went to play with my hamster almost immediately, to help comfort me, only to find he was dead too. 

I want to not take my dog for granted now, and I wish I could get through one day without him getting into trouble and having to scold him. He developed food allergies and my bank account shows my love for him. My vet's secretary ladies are always saying how good I am to him and how amazing it is how much money I willingly, repeatedly spend for him. He has special expensive food, and has had relapses when off medication so now he is constantly on prednisone - a steroid which keeps him from total outbreaks. When he has an outbreak, its antibiotics and special medicated baths twice a week. Due to the meds, he thinks he is always starving! 

He has gotten into trouble in the kitchen and knocked down his father's food dish to steal out of it. He has gotten into a weird habit of grabbing things like paper towels or tissues and putting them in the middle of the living room. Go figure. He gets into grumpy snarly matches with his old father a couple times a day and they've had a not too serious, short scuffle or two before. 

He got bloat, twice, so he has a pepcid ac pill a half hour before his prednisone and gets his food soaked in water - which is unbearable to him and always a big rukus. And he gets fed twice a day. He is quite a handful but I am glad I got him and not somone who would have given up or abandoned him. I am so happy we finally got a hold on his allergies. When he had constantly re-occurring outbreaks, the one vet actually thought he should be Pts. But I knew I couldn't live with myself if I did that, it would feel like an easy way out. I just kept putting my wallet where my heart is until the other vet thought we should try constant medication. 

I'm just sad but feeling like I don't want to yell at my dog, I praise him all the time. He gets into so much random trouble and stuff thats not good for him, I have to be a tough mom. Scolding him makes him sulk and he knows when he is doing something wrong but a lot of times he does it anyways. I'd love to be so proud of how I've raised him but he likes to ignore commands, often just being too excited about something to bother listening to stuff thats not fun. Its like he has a.d.d. sometimes. 

Sorry I went on and on.. I guess I am feeling like typing and I can't think of a way to pass time until my father gets here and we can do something progressive with Lady. Thanks to anyone who bothered to take the time and read most or all of this.


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## MariHxc (May 23, 2007)

i'm sorry for your loss


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## DingoMutt (Feb 27, 2008)

I'm so sorry for your loss. I've never lost a dog, but being a big dog, 10 years was about as long as they last. I think age might have taken her if she had no health problems or anything. *dog nerd*


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

Ty. 

So my dad took her to the Spca and they're gonna cremate her and can't do a necropsy. We will never know why, and it will probably always bug me.. but its my mom's dog and my parents money behind it so theres not much I can do. Its just so weird that this is it, the end. There was no decline in health where we knew it was coming, no accident or medical emergency.. no grim diagnosis, nothing. Its like surreal. And since she was a mostly outside dog, I didn't exactly see her every single day. 

She had the whole breezeway with her kennel in it and our yard. My mom and I take turns feeding all 3 (2 now) dogs so I fed her every other night and got cold nose nudges on any bare parts of me, from waist down - like my feet or calves, knees etc. I'd pet her, praise her and give her food. 

Other than that its not going to be a monumental adjustment.. the most hard hitting might be when she isn't barking at everything on the face of the earth, especially whenever I come home. Or saying we have 2 German shepherds instead of 3 when discussing the pets in my house. Our parrot died in like September and it was weird not hearing his constant comments and random noises, it felt like deafening quiet. but it was easier in the fact that I just not say we have a parrot anymore. Now I will still say German shepherds.. but it will be hard saying 2 and not 3 at first. 

Its all very unsettling.


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## MariHxc (May 23, 2007)

I know what you mean about wanting to say three instead of two. 

Two summers ago, I lost my greyhound, JohnniAngel, then a week later I lost my dachshund Samantha. We went from having four dogs to two in a week.

Once again, I'm so sorry for your loss. I just lost one of my ratties today, so I know how you're feeling. I'll be here if you need someone to talk to.


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## crapola (Feb 12, 2007)

i'm so sorry for your loss


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

I haven't been sleeping very well. I think its getting better but I just lay there for forever and don't fall asleep. When I wake up in middle of sleeping I have trouble getting back to sleep. I always end up thinking about her (Lady) when laying like that. Its just depressing and I guess it really bothers me that I don't know why. Why she was gone so suddenly without any hints. My parents did not want a necropsy mostly because it would have been very hard to get her somewhere open that would do it. Also my dad is cheap when it comes to animals. But I think my dad also doesn't want to know if it was something that could have been prevented to save us any guilt. But I feel guilty just by not knowing, not knowing if we might have missed something and maybe learn from this. I would rather have justified guilt or perhaps some comfort knowing it was inevitable. 

I have anxiety, I know this and I feel those anxiety feelings towards going to bed. My mom woke me up that morning, calling for me and I got up, I thought something was wrong, thought maybe my dog threw up or had an accident or might be sick. I dreaded him being sick (he got bloat not long ago). I was uneasy and my mom told me Lady was dead. I was completely shocked and confused.. I was also still half asleep on top of that. 

I don't know what to do. I cried my eyes out till my stomach hurt last night, for practically no reason. Just the stress from every day plus sadness over Lady, plus frustration from multiple nights of bad sleep and at that moment, plus my fiance being difficult. I felt better after crying and thought I might sleep good, but no dice. It was maybe easier than all those other nights, I think my body just flipped off my mind and shut down from the exhaustion. 

This really sux.


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

its hard. i can't say i know exactly what you are feeling, because i don't know you well enough and never knew your dog. but from what you are saying i can certainly understand. when i was about five, mom brought home a kitten she found in the dumpster. i named her snowball and she became my sister, best friend and confidant. i was 19 when she died in my arms. for what seemed like at least a year she had been sick and on different medications for it. i had made the decision to help her cross over that morning and was waiting for my dad to get home that afternoon to take her in. she died in my arms before dad got home. 

i was devastated and i knew what had caused her death. i kept thinking that maybe if we got to this medicien sooner or if i had kept up on it better instead of being lax every once in a while and missing a dose, that she would still be with me. that after all she gave me i had failed her. the guilt, though still there, has subsided over time. i can think of all the good times with her fondly without the pain of her loss a lot more now. there are still times when i wish she was still with me, where my arms feel so empty and awkward without her in them. it was a long time before i was able to dream about her and not wake up only to start crying once i remembered she was not here anymore and it was only a dream. now when i dream of her, i wake up and though i can't say i'm completely happy the pain is not heart wrenching. 

so the trouble sleeping, the odd feeling you have when you don't hear lady, its all normal. even though i have moved to a place that snowball has never been when i'm feeling particularly down i seem to catch a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. i turn my head every time knowing that she won't be there but thinking it was her just the same. these furry creatures with their great big hearts become a part of us. we rely on them as much as they rely on us though perhaps not for all the same reasons and its natural for it to hurt and feel strange when they are just not there anymore. but the pain will ease eventually and you'll adjust to not having them around in body anymore but you will always have their spirit and all that they taught you growing up. you still have all the love they ever had for you. 

its hard when you don't know why of course, you're right, you wonder if there was something more that you could have done, something you missed. but the guilt would not be less even if you knew. you would still ask if there was somehow a sign even if the vets say there was no way there could have been. 

but think about how she treated you, would she want you to dwell on things like this or would she rather you remember the times you played dog ball together and smiled? its hard to do of course, you're hurting. but it helped me when i was feeling down about snowball's passing to think about what she would be doing if she saw me like that. she would not have wanted me to be upset and that helped me to not feel as bad.


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

Ty. I have been feeling gradually better. I try to think of her standing in the breezeway, tail wagging, her whole body wiggling, big goofy grin. And try to erase the sight of her laying there, looking asleep but for that sinking feeling, that void of her spark. I still get tripped up when I feed the other two dogs, I still turn around the corner to feed her but have to stop myself and wonder what the heck was I thinking. Just the routine of it is hard. My body goes through the motions on its own, that I've done a trillion times for the good part of almost ten years. The past couple times I just turned and took a step or two, so the distance I go before it dawns on me is getting less. *sigh* 

Things are slowly getting more 'normal'.


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

*Re: Our dog Lady died.. its just so sudden. (pictures added)*

Ok, so after fiddling around with 2 scanners in my house and none working, I ended up taking pictures of pictures. Anyhow, here is pretty Lady.


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

oh, she was a beaut. i had a german shepard years ago. he was a big goof, of the king sized too. your lady's smile reminded me of him.


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## mink (Jun 24, 2007)

Ya, she was pretty goofy.. more of the spaz kind lol. Her son is a downright knucklehead. He thinks he is tiny but hes a big wrecking ball. He bounces and bumbles all over the house lol. His father, is a goof but very laid-back. He will pounce at you and run for play, and he will just laze around with a goofy grin and roll around on the floor. 

Heres my dog Ruger, Lady's son. He looks a lot like his dad though. 





















And here is his Dad, Lady's "suitor" Sarge.


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

sarge reminds me a lot of moe's bother larry. we had to give larry and curly away. but sarge has the same downturned ear just like larry. larry was pretty laid back of the brothers, curly was a coward and moe was a goof. he too thought he was a small little chiwawa while in reality being able to stretch all the away across our nearly 8 foot long couch.... 

all your sheps are gorgeous though. what remarkable "brutes" you have! :wink: i'd like to get a german shepard again some day, not for a long time to come though. i'm not much of a dog person. but there's something about germans that i can't help but love. they would be the only dog that i would get though. they're "special"! :lol:


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