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My Life in Search of Food, by Sadie Gordon

Sadie passed away

Aug. 27, 2005 - we lost Sadie yesterday morning. She'd had a heart murmur for a long time that never interfered with her ability to enjoy life, but starting the first week of August, she became sick - she couldn't run, wasn't interested in food, so we knew something was wrong. After visiting different vets and going to the Veterinary Specialty Hospital, a cardiologist finally diagnosed her last Monday with a rare condition in which the heart valve was allowing blood to squirt against the heart wall, "like a garden hose," our former vet Dr. Todd said after he read the diagnosis. It weakened her heart wall and finally caused a hole - when it happened it probably caused her first collapse in early August. We'd hope the heart muscle would heal itself; the cardiologist said it could happen and at first put her on several meds and then took her off of them - he said on Monday she'd have 6-8 months. She lasted 4 days, despite our having constant consultations with a wonderful group of veterinary health care folks. Yesterday morning, after a coughing episode, she seemed to rally. She licked a jar of baby food off my fingers, went out through the dog door, peed and pooped, came back in and had a nice drink of water, and went back and lay down on her pillow by the window. She seemed stable. But when I next checked on her, she was gone. We miss you so much, Sadie.

treats

We visited Wag/Gourmutts today, and the people who work there gave us treats. I didn't even growl at them - much. We also got Macho Sticks (the 6" instead of the 12", so the owner calls them "Not Very Macho Sticks") from Wag, and a ghost-shaped PupCake and some peanut butter cups from Gourmutts. The nice ladies at Gourmutts asked for my picture for their wall!

Today's Treats

My sisters Daisy and LouLou have already written about our adventures this week (Blessing of the Animals where they'll have FOOD, and our visit to Wag/Gourmutts where we got FOOD). I loved the goodies we got today. Mom got us a carrot Pupcake from Gourmutts and a bag of salmon treats from Wag. They are delicious. I'm trying to figure out how to jump on the counter to help myself, but although I can jump really high, the counter's a little out of reach. Still, I remain hopeful that maybe someone will leave some FOOD on the dining room table and leave a chair pulled out - I've had some wonderful experiences in that situation. For some reason, Mom & Dad aren't as crazy about it, though.