Furby

Well it looks like the end of the road is coming for our dog Furby who is 10 years old and has outlived two other dogs and several cats. We weren't sure he was going to make the move to Texas, but instead we lost our other dog Koda who was killed when someone poisoned her a few weeks prior to us leaving.

We've known for about a year that Furby has arthritis in his back legs. He has enjoyed a good life since moving here living in an air conditioned home with no collar since we let him out the back door to our fenced in back yard where he can lay on the patio on cool nights and do as he pleases.

Recently our cat Midnight became an official outdoor cat again too. He likes to be out at night and sleeps on an empty bed during the day until it's time to go out again. Maia about had a fit when he first got out thinking she would never see him again, but Midnight is a very smart cat. He hops the fence to explore, or sometimes he is content just to stay in the back yard, and has taken to scratching at the door or meowing until someone lets him in.

Back to Furby. Last Friday he started yelping when he would lay down. The first time I noticed it was when we gave him Eli's usual leftover chicken nuggets and he yelped when he went to get one. I made an appointment at the veterinarian who my friend Angie recommended for Monday. However during the weekend he went from bad to worse. He would cry horribly any time he had to lay down or stand up and stands pathetically wanting to sit down but afraid of the pain.

So Jeff and I took him yesterday. We were all prepared for them to tell us it was time to put him to sleep. He was seen by a young doctor who checked him thoroughly telling us what we already knew that his back hips are bad as are his shoulders. She said aside from hip replacement there is nothing to "fix" him but she could give him various medicines to make him comfortable.

We are going to give it a few days to see how it goes. We are mixing his medicine every 12 hours with canned food he is eating. He's had two doses now and there isn't a whole lot of change. As I write this I think he's been standing for three hours just panting and looking at me sadly. I'm sure her job is to save animals, but Jeff and I are looking at this realistically that if the medicines don't allow him to at least lay down and stand comfortably without the agonizing crying that we will ask her to put him down at the end of the week.