Goodbyes and New Starts

It has been 6 weeks since my last blogpost, I never had such a long break. But in general, I've been a bad blogger this year. Us moving our house and workplace has been taken a lot of energy. We finally moved 5 weeks ago but just a few days before that my dear Mimi passed away. Mimi was like a shadow always near me, for 15 years we were inseparable, to say that I'm totally heartbroken is an understatement. She had been doing poorly for about a week, all of a sudden she wasn't doing good, and just 40 minutes before I was going to take her to the vet she passed away in my arms. I'm thankful for the years she gave me, her unconditional love and I'm glad I was with her till her last breath.

Just a few days later we moved to the new house almost exactly 1 year after buying it, which helped me with a new environment it was less hard not having her with me.

We still are not entirely done, neither with moving all our stuff from the old house as fixing the new house, still, tons to do, with barely a budget it is going slow, but we'll get there. I'll show photos soon.

Goodbye Ernie, Hello Luna

We lost our sweet curly Ernie. He was the brother of Lili, Mimi and Toffee, all four grew up in our house and after 14 years it was tough to see him deteriorate all of a sudden. He had dementia, causing him to walk around in circles all the time. He lost a lot of weight and he just wasn't there anymore. We miss him terribly, he was incredibly sweet and just one big teddy bear and the King of the curls. As the second of the siblings is gone we are trying to prepare ourselves for the other two. The only hard part of taking care of so many dogs is losing them.

With losing Ernie and Simon we were down to eight dogs, a number we haven't had for 15 years, at one point we had 15 and for many years 13. In the past few years we kept the number at 10. A lot of people find it crazy to hear how many dogs we have but honestly, they are pure joy and love and we love having them. Their favorite hobby is sleeping and they are pretty calm and quiet as we are usually home. We have a big garden and a doggy door so they come in and out whenever they want, they also have each other.

Last Sunday we got up at 6am and drove to Izmir. We first went to the flea market as it is a 3-hour drive we wanted to visit there as well. We scored some awesome finds.

And then we picked up this pretty girl. She was taken from the shelter and brought to the animal hospital as she was so skinny.

You can see her ribs but her spirit isn't broken, she is very cheerful and already very attached to us. She is very sweet. She is extremely obsessed with food. but we're sure she'll calm down when she realizes she never has to stay hungry again. We've never had a dog that was that emaciated. People...

Although declared healthy at the hospital she has diarrhea and an eye infection, it might be side effects of her weak immune system, we have her eyes under control and will keep a close eye to everything else. It will take months for her to get to a good weight and be completely healthy.

She felt at home right away and has a good bond with Mimi. We called her Luna.

Goodbye Simon :(

Today we had to let go of our sweet, sweet Simon. The sweetest, friendliest dog we ever had. He was with us for more than 15 years, he came when he already was an adult, and it was instant love. He was always cheerful, sweet and gentle to both people and all the other doggies we have and had throughout the years. We will miss him terribly.

For the past 2 months he has been having seizures from time to time, but the past 2 days he had 5 and was clearly suffering. He had already been on Rimadyl for the past 15 months to manage arthritis. It pained both him and us to keep him around so we had to put him to sleep today to let him go peacefully, he now is resting between trees, flowers and butterflies in the mountain close to our home next to more fur babies we lost in the past. Even with the amount of dogs we have they all have their own place in our hearts, Simon's place is big and impossible to fill. Words can not describe how special he was and how much we love him, our home is not the same without him :(

Zeyno

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to sweet Zeyno, our biggest dog and one that has been with us for fourteen years. It was her time and she has had a very good life. She has been loved and pampered.

She never was the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a big, good hearted dingus that let all the other dogs use her as a mattress  and boss her around. We haven't known an other dog as patient, innocent and with good intentions as she.

Zeyno, thank you so much for all the love and the smiles and the warmth you gave us all these years, you will be missed.

Goodbye Leo

This week we had to let go of Leo, son of Daisy and brother of Ufo, whom both passed away a few years ago. Leo's health was getting worse, he was practically blind and completely deaf but worse was he had hardly any strength in his legs, which was both awful for him to feel and us to see. Leo was born in our house as we had found his mother (unknowingly) pregnant. He was never a happy doggy, somehow even though he never had it tough and his name was Leo and his color sunny he never saw things on the bright side. But he we still loved him and he will be missed...

Another sad Goodbye

Just when we started to get used to a house without Lucky, our old little Bibi passed away, 1 week after Lucky. Two losses in such a short time is heart breaking and we have a few more old dogs and the thought of loosing them is horrible.

Bibi has been with us since 2002, we do not know her exact age but it must have been around 15/16. We found her on the streets in very bad shape but thanks to a never ending appetite she recouped well and never had any health issues in all these years.  Until we discovered a lump in her breast last year. As you might remember we lost Daisy and Lily from breast cancer, we both had them operated which did not help much and took weeks for them to recover. Because of this we did not have Bibi operated on. She actually lived longer than the two who we had operated, but I think her good appetite helped a lot. When she all of a sudden stopped eating we knew it was her time.
Instead of letting her go on her own, we took her to the vet to have her put to sleep. This decision was because we know that even when they do not eat and drink it takes days for them to pass away, which is painful for them and agony for us to see them suffer. Bibi's tumor was swollen due to an abscess and looked horrible and painful.

This the last picture I took of her, the day she passed away, she now lies in the mountains with her other brothers and sisters.

If you want to avoid your female dogs to get breast cancer, please let them be spayed as soon as possible, best is when they are 5-6 months before they produce hormones. The older they get the more risk, especially when they have had pups spaying doesn't help much anymore.
We learned this the hard way by loosing 3 girls in 1 year, our 3 remaining girls are all spayed and hopefully will stay with us for a long time.

A Sad Goodbye

Our dear sweet Elsie passed away yesterday. It was not a surprise, she had been ill for almost a year and we have been preparing ourselves mentally for months but still it is a hard blow to the heart.
Elsie was like no other dog we have ever had, she had the attitude of a Royalty even though she was small and thin she was the Queen of the house. Incredibly smart and very moving her being very proud but she also hated to be alone (meaning without my mother).

Elsie and my mother were inseparable from the first day we found her in 2005. Elsie was incredibly thin, dehydrated, full of ticks and had a bad healed rib (most likely of someone who kicked her). The night we found her was also the night that I had to fly to Holland so her first 2 weeks I was not there, and when I came home the two had bonded like they knew each other for years.
Elsie never forgot her bad times, and never liked being held on a lap, she always wanted to be stroked with all feet on the ground to have control over the situation. But she would always follow my mother to each room she would enter and kept her eyes always open to watch, unlike our other dogs who usual always sleep.
Her entire behaviors and character made her a true one of a kind and she will be missed so very very much, I don't think my mum's broken heart will ever heal entirely without her.

The last few months she lost a lot of weight and lost most of her hair too, we tried every medicine available all over the world but unfortunately nothing was enough. Her always watchful eyes looked at us while she passed away, and they never closed, just like when she was alive she wanted to keep her eyes open...
She is now in the mountains next to Daisy who was her best friend.

Goodbye Sweet Lili

Today we lost our sweet Lili. She was diagnosed with cancer in May and had her ups and downs, but the end was still unexpectedly fast.

She was the sweetest little girl and will be terribly missed by us. The past week she wasn't doing good and had a hard time breathing, we tried everything but nothing helped, she also barely ate and she lost a lot of weight the past week. Today we decided to put her to sleep to end her pain  just when I put her in the car to drive her to the vet her last breath left her right in my arms I kissed her until her heart stopped beating. She left by herself without a sound and luckily quick and painless.
She now is in the green mountain near our house finally resting after her struggle.

Her sister Mimi has not made any clear reaction to her absence yet, but they were always together so we are not sure yet how she will react.

Urchin

I have very, very sad news.

Remember that we were saying that both hind legs were very weak?  He could stand and take one or two steps, no more, and had to be carried outside for his toilet.

We took him tuesday again to the vet and had finally more x-rays taken. His other leg is totally out of the joint, the ligament torn. The vet said that it is no use to put it again in place, it would go out right again.

Worse news was that the steel plate that they put in the broken leg, with screws and wire, had bent in a L shape and was no good. He wanted to operate on him again and put a heavier plate in. The injured leg would be shortened.

We spent a terrible tuesday evening, deliberating what to do. We read all what we could find on the web about hip dislocation by dogs. The usual treatment is to fixate the leg in a sling for several weeks till the torn ligaments have healed. If that doesn't help, than the head of the femur is removed surgically to relieve the pain.

Of course, that all supposing that the dog has an other healthy hind leg to walk on, but Urchin's other leg was badly shattered. The vet could of course not say if he would be ever pain free.

Ah, the way that animals warm a place in your heart!
We have had to put down other dogs, of course, with illnesses that couldn't be cured. But to have to do it with a young, otherwise healthy dog, it was really, really hard.

But in the end, that was what we decided, because a life with pain is no life.

This dog has brought about so much goodness in so many people, I hate that this love story has no happy ending, I hate it.

I am still glad, though, that he didn't die in terror on that road. I'm glad he was loved and pampered in his last days, I'm glad that he was clean and well fed. I'm glad that Estella was holding him and stroking him and talking to him till he peacefully went to sleep on his bed, in our house.

He is buried in a hill overlooking the sea. He will always be one of ours.

Goodbye Ufo

After 6 months of struggeling to safe our Ufo, we have put him to sleep on wednesday. We will spare you his last pictures, although we managed to let him gain weight he looked horrible. All his muscles were dying, and for the last 10 days he could barrely walk without falling and slipping, like Bambi on ice.

It was heartbreaking to see him so ill, and although we tried everything he was only getting worse.

A few months ago he was diagnosed with myositis eosinophilica, an anti-imune illness before that we thought it was a problem with his teeth. His blood tests and x-rays came out normal. He got steroids after that, but it didn't help. When he finally started to get wounds all over his body and had a hard time to get up and walk, we decided to make an end of his sufferings.

It is weird to see him in these pictures as we have seen him boney and ill for so many months, he was such a beautiful dog. His mother Daisy and brother Leo are still with us.

The rest of the furry family have been quiet and have been eating not much since that day, we are all grieving...