We woke up to a commotion in the middle of the night, coming from the dog bed.
At first, we thought maybe one of our three dogs was having a bad dream. Or that the two smaller ones were having a little dust-up. But it quickly became clear that this was something different. It was Darcy, our oldest and largest dog, convulsing.
Darcy, an Australian cattle dog mix we rescued more than 12 years ago, had always seemed unbreakable.
We adopted her from the Humane Society in 2011 when she was roughly 2. Since then, we never took her to the vet for anything other than annual checkups, vaccinations and other preventative care. In old age, she had gone 90% deaf and maybe 50% blind. But she otherwise seemed to have made it through life without debilitating health conditions or illnesses.
On top of that, Darcy was quite possibly the sweetest dog on Earth. We called her a “love pig,” because she was greedy for affection.
But this December, we noticed she started putting herself to bed earlier. A couple of times, we had a fair amount of trouble waking her up from what seemed like extraordinarily deep slumbers. We’re now think she was having small seizures. Then, she had a very big one. She was sleeping on a chair in front of the fireplace when she began to thrash uncontrollably. Within seconds, her mouth was yawning open and snapping violently shut. She must of bitten a gum or a cheek, because there was blood.
That’s when we understood it was probably time.
As dog owners, we have been lucky to go so long without a loss. We’d never, as a family, had to put a beloved pet to sleep.
