she had better things to do

ruby left us tonight and while it was extremely painful for the 5 of us who were with her, it was much eaiser for her.   she had a cheeseburger and sweet potato fries and let out a giant belch before leaving us.  when it was time, she simply laid her head in my lap and drifted off to sleep.  it was actually so easy that i think angels were lined up in heaven vying for the right to come get her.  i miss her terribly already, but am just so relieved that she is finally at peace; no more pain, limping, scratching, head shaking or licking….it seemed like only when she was sleeping was she relaxed, other than that something was cronically bothering her….but not anymore.  our girl is running and chasing tennis balls, completely whole and enjoying the life she should have had all along!

as the week ends, i will go back and post about her last few days.  my anxiety in coming to this day kept me from forming complete sentances, remembering certain things (like taking m cell phone to work) and from basically performing some simple daily functions.  but as wel all recover with the knowledge that while our hearts say otherwise (and they always will) our minds win out and always do what’s right by our pets!

 

taking suggestions

ok, tomorrow will be ruby’s last dinner, do we have any suggestions for the best gastronomical send off?  (within reason of course)…oh, and even though i’ve gone vegan at the beginning of the year, i have no problem buying her meat!  as a matter of fact, she will probably have mc donalds for lunch tomorrow.  please submit your suggestions, via the comment box, thanks!

sorry for my absence…

its been a tough week.  it was decided that THE time has come.  on thursday ruby will cross over rainbow bridge, but i must admit that i couldn’t let her do it without a family to call her own, so…..today we officially adopted ruby!  its not like she hasnt been a part of our family since the day she arrived here, but i just felt the need to make it official….i didn’t want her leaving us waiting for a rescuer on the other side of rainbow bridge, i wanted her to wait for us….now i know that might be selfish, but i think i’m owed that.  i will actually have a huge void in my heart, my soul and my home when she leaves us, and i hate it.  however, the cancer is so advanced that the docs say that its time to help her go gently before something suddenly and most imporantly more painful happens and we are all in agreement there.

SO, this entire week she has been and will continue to be completely spoiled.

MONDAY-she went to stay at the vet for the day so that the docs could completely evaluate her. during her stay, i brought her dunkin donuts and she shared lunches with karen, tammy and kim. the tossed the tennis ball for her (her favorite sport) and she actually ran after it!  for dinner she had left over pot roast in her food, TOTAL YUM FACTOR!

TODAY-she went back to the vet and a bit more lazy day than yesterday, she was really tuckered out.  again i brough treats…a boston cream donut and a vanilla long john.  she shared karen’s soup and while sarah took a phone call, ruby helped herself to sarah’s wrap sandwich….gotta love her spunk!  tonight she had the rest of the pot roast, potatoes and carrots.  after dinner she had a tostada shell for a treat, and then licked the remainder of z’s strawberry yogurt.  angus was so jealous that he started licking the OUTSIDE of the container….but the best part of all tonight….ruby joined me in an official wine tasting!  now how many dogs can you say have done that?  we shared a 2008 DOCO Chianti classico and as you can see by the photos, she very much enjoyed it….a girl after my own heart!

 

tomorrow ruby goes to daycare with angus and will once again be spoiled rotten!  more pictures of that tomorrow night.

what a great night…

she was hesitant to be out in the snow during the day, maybe it was the wind and blowing snow, but last night bob took her and angus out back after plowing and she had a great time. when she came in she was investigating this ‘new’ kong….it was covered in snow and she didn’t know what to do with it…quite cute to watch.  she was so excited that she actually went to pick up a tennis ball and carried it around the house for about 10-15 minutes or so.  then she picked up a stuffed animal that amanda brought her last weekend and took it into the family room to lay down with it.  she nuzzled its ear and licked it almost as if remembering her own pups that have grown and found homes of their own.  she even slept until about 3am….a little sooner than bob would have liked, but none the less, he got up with her, let her out and then she came back to sleep.  at least one of us got more sleep after that….ugh!

her tasting last night was chamagne chicken and left over rigatoni from the night before.  as usual she scarfed it down, but had some problems getting the rigatoni…they kept slipping from her grasp.  no desert last night though as it was a very late dinner with much plowing to do afterwards.

today she is at daycare with angus, getting spoiled out of her mind.  i hope i can live with her swelled head when she comes home tonight

yesterday’s taste….

i almost completely forgot to add ruby’s new taste last night; rigatoni with vodka sauce….licked the bowl clean…so did z as a matter of fact!  for desert it was a dried apricot (i’m totally in love with these now). like the cutie, she spit it out at first, but then once she punctured it (with what little canines she has left) she loved it and wanted more…tonight i’m making champagne chicken (we really use white wine) for bob and z, and that will be her taste as well.  since i’m having a tofu stir fry (i went vegan as of the first of the year) she might get that too….and let me tell you angus will not let her have anything that he doesn’t get to try as well.

is it TIME?

we have a very difficult decision to make and its KILLING ME!

say cheese….burger!

so what a great day ruby and angus had today.  their favorite dog walker, leslie, came over to pay a visit AND bring mcdonalds!  as you can see by the dog’s anticipation of the meety goodness, they were both paying full attention to leslie in order to get to it asap.  in the one picture of ruby, its almost as if she’s giving leslie the evil eye to command her to hand over the burger-lol!

"Hand over the burger and no one gets hurt!"

pretty please, can we have the burgers now?

thank you so much for visiting them leslie and per the text you sent earlier, please feel free to come over any time you want,  whether we are home or not!  you know they love you…as do we!

and for Today’s Taste:  breaded shrimp stuffed with monteray jack cheese (and cauliflower)….the shrimp were a HUGE hit, but the cauliflower….not so much-lol.

what’s left to say?

when we can see the differences in ruby’s physical appearance from one week to the next, it’s never good news.  below are pictures from last week and this week.  as you can see the difference in the size of the wound is astrinomical and the tumor seems to be taking hold of the surgical wound site and pulling more open by the day. these pictures are not pleasant by any means, but i think they are worth showing.  ruby’s story needs to be told so that maybe one more dog can be saved….seeing this may lead to a vet visit to look at a small, and at the time inconsequential lump, but could lead to better endings down the road.

last week (last week of dec/first week of jan)

 

this week (1/9) view #1

 

this week (1/9) view #2

she has been having some good days as she is off the chemo and feeling a bit better overall, but the increase in the size and severity of the tumors is still a tell tale sign that we must address the unthinkable in the near future.  she has been getting up in the middle of the night now for weeks and while we were at first frustrated with this change in behavior as it seemed to come out of the blue, we understand that anything she may exhibit from now on is most likely due to her illness, so we let her out, change her t-shirt to make her feel better and go back to sleep…sometimes.  many times its then that i lay awake thinking about her, the dirtbags who owned her and what they have left us to do now.  the hardest part is that WE, her rescuers (tara and amanda…more on them in another post), the board members at placing paws (becky, jean, christie and cindy) and all the people who have met ruby…WE are the ones that love her and care for her and WE are the one’s left to do the hardest thing of all….say goodbye.  the day is getting closer-i know it-and i hate it already, but as i think most of you will agree, we wonder how much longer we can let her go on living like this, in pain and not leading the kind of life a dog her age should be living.  i just don’t think its this week….

on a lighter note, in keeping with our goal of new experiences for ruby, Today’s Tasting was potato and onion perogi….and boy did she ever love it!

sheeeee’s baaaack

ok, so this isn’t about ruby…for once, but it is still about fostering (per se) as fostering is what i based this whole blog on….my feral cat, kipper, has finally returned after having dissapeared for 7 weeks.  kipper is a calico, believed to be about 5-6 years old.  she started coming around our house about 5 years ago.  we fed her a little not knowing what would eventually come of this ONE CAT!

long story short, we found her and her two babies living under a shed in my sister’s neighbors yard.  the two kittens were friendly enough that we rescued them and found them new permanent homes, but kipper was too wise for us.  but after getting to know me she started frequenting our home almost every day for food….she also kept my garage void of mice (total win win).  she eluded trapping for about 3 years and we did have to go through at least two litters that we know of.  the first litter she brought by my house regularly and the kittens were easy to trap and spay/neuter….one of them, snickers, was actually adopted out by one of her vet techs!  the other, buster (or buster brown as i called him a lot), lived in my garage for about a year and then one day just disaapeared.  however, i was not and am not as worried about him as i was for kipper since we had also trapped and neutered 3 other tom cats in our hood and they all took off after my torturous actions towards them…you should have seem them run when i opened the trap…..never to be seen again, but i’m sure have taken over as boss of the hood on the next block or so.

however, kipper was the one thing that i could count on….on my doorstep every night waiting for her dinner.  during the warmer months it was dry adult kibble and during the winter months it was kitten kibble (to give her the extra calories; fattening up for the harsh winter) with some heated canned cat food!  total yum for her, she loved the stuff.

when we see the cats on our front porch the sign they know (that tells them i know they are there) is for me to tap on the door window and they head for the garage door.  i open it set down the food and water on a rug in the garage and they come in (great for the winter as they can catch a break from the cold wind and snow) and eat til their heart’s content.  however, on occasion, one or two of them have been trapped in the garage, however, so very briefly, in the garage  door must come down (the 6″ or so its open) before it can go back up again, so bob has come home from work and accidentally trapped her inside.  when this has happened before, she has left us for about a week but never any longer….until this last time.  seven worrisome weeks went by before she came back to eat yesterday.  she wouldn’t however come into the garage, so i warmed up the canned food and put it on the front porch for her, hoping that it will lessen the fear and she will make it a habit of once again returning on a daily basis.

its just a huge relief for me as i’ve grown very fond of kipper (who got her name from z as she loved the children’s cartoon ‘kipper the dog’.  we were finally able to trap her about 2-3 years ago (with a very large contraption) thanks to serena at feral feline project http://feralfelineproject.org/ (who i’ve been working with since we noticed kippers first litter).  she has been spayed and we are happy to report that she, by herself, will no longer be helping to populate our little neighborhood with homeless kitties.  however, i have one more that is too, ever elusive.  we named him garth, after my fav country singer, as he’s a bit plump (actually obese in the winter) and slightly crossed-eyed and that makes him absolutely adorable.  garth only comes around to eat in the winter months when i can’t trap him, so the quandry continues as to how to get this guy and fix him once and for all.  i honestly think he is one of kipper’s offspring as we haven’t had any ‘new’ cats come by in about 3 years, but if he’s like any of his brothers or his father (which ever one it was) he too will dissapear and i will miss his adorable face.  i will try to get some pics of them if i can, but its hard because even after all these years, they still don’t trust me enough to let me get closer than about 3′ to them….sad, but true.

oh, and yes as all things relate back to ruby, on her new taste menu yesterday….warm, canned cat food!  OMG, this dog was in total heaven…oh and for desert she licked the inside wrapper of a butter finger candy bar….so what, the chocolate is going to kill her? (ok, maybe that was in bad taste, but we do need to lighten things up a bit, too!)

is it a milestone? not quite sure

its definately something, but not in a good way.  today is the first day ruby should have had a chemo treatment and didn’t.  doc h said that he expects her to go down hill more quickly without it BUT that she might have some better days ahead as well, as sometimes the chemo itself makes her not feel good.  its also the first day both she and angus were left home alone for the full day since before christmas.  they did fine…as expected, and even though ruby smelled horrible, her shirt was not as soaked as i would have thought since they are pretty much couch potatoes when no one is home….and that’s a good thing for her.

on a lighter note, she tried an orange, well actually a cutie, tonight.  at first she just smelled it and said no thank you, but when i broke the piece in half and exposed the juicy bits inside, she was all over it.  i think we will try a new food for her each night and see what she takes a liking to and what she turns her nose up at.  i do know, thanks to christie of placing paws, that she LOVES mcdonald hamburgers, but what dog doesn’t.  unfortunately for her, ruby will have to beg others to get her more if she wants them as our family does not frequent any fast food places, especially mcdonalds….so let the begging begin!