Guido

 We lost our Guido, age 13 suddenly last week. He was big brother to every wolfhound in the house. We all miss you Guido, you left your imprint on us all.

Good bye to our Beautiful Girl

Today we said good bye to Sketch. It was very hard to make the decision and even to the last minutes we questioned our options. The reality was there was no other option. Perhaps we could have given her another pain medication that would have only sedated her more and not changed the outcome. Sketch had hurt enough, her tumor had grown 2 inches in a week and she could no longer use her leg or even stand to eat at her feeder. We gave her great treats today and she rode to the vet with her head out the window. She was happy and excited to see Anne, her breeder and original owner and the three of us surrounded her as she stepped away from this world and all the pain of her cancer.

Anne says she should put warning labels on all her dogs that say" beware guaranteed to break your heart", but I wouldn't trade the pain of this last two weeks for the joy that Sketch brought us in the two years she was ours. She was a beautiful gentle creature our Sketch. She made us smile every day. Thank you, Anne for being brave enough to breed these dogs, it is not for the faint of heart.

Anne left us Heartman, Sketch's son, turns out her female Rune is in heat and Heartman is raising the roof at the farm. So Heartman is here with us now and soon we will have Sailor our puppy. I feel oddly at peace and know that Sketch is not in pain, wherever she may be.

A Turn For The Worse

This was Sketch, just this weekend, when we went on a picknick in the park nearby here. It's surprising how fast she has gone down hill in just a few days. When this picture was taken she seemed happy and interested in everything going on around her. She wasn't walking well, that's true. but she still was like the old Sketch in most ways.

The tumor on her rear left leg has gotten bigger, and she's had a hard time moving around with three legs, but in just the last couple days she has gotten much worse. She doesn't want to get up at all. She doesn't even get up when one of us comes in the house, which is very unusual. She is obviously in more pain, even though we have increased her pain medication more than once. She is now on two different kinds.

It became obvious to us yesterday that she is trying to tell us that it's time. We didn't know when or how we could make this decision, but there is really no question now. We made the appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I stayed home from work today because I didn't want her to be alone on her last day. She's only gotten up once, the entire day, and that with great difficulty.

Her breeder, the woman that Sketch spent the first couple of years of her life with, is coming tomorrow to be with her and us. She will be bringing Sketch's son Heartman to stay with us for a while, since this will be the first time we've been married that we haven't had a Wolfhound with us. Sketch will be the thrid Wolfhound in three years that we've lost.