POLLY

10 May 2022

We had a funeral for Polly on Friday afternoon.  She died sometime during the night Thursday-Friday.

Her death came so very quickly.  I noticed on Wednesday night that she seemed to be breathing more quickly than usual and I waited to see what it would be like in the morning.  She was still breathing "funny" and the weirdest thing was that she didn't bark all day.  That NEVER happens.  After she ate (only half of her dinner), her feet went out from under her and she couldn't stand up.  I called the vet right away and they gave me an appointment....for a week and a half from now.  I ended up calling them back and they said they had emergency appointments that night, so Walt and I took her in.

Though I am usually the one standing with the dog at the exam table, Polly has definitely become Walt's dogs..  He's always been good with all of our dogs, but he and Polly have had a special thing going for many of the 12 years she has been here, so it was Walt who stood with her while waiting for the vet to come in.

The vet said she detected a heart murmur, which we'd never been told she had before and she took her back to have xrays done and to get her one very long toenail clipped.

She came back in  with the x-ray and said she had given her her first dose of medication, which she would be taking for the next two weeks. 

Then once we paid our $500+ bill (yes really!) she sent us home and said she could call in a day or two to see how things were going.

We brought her home and you could tell she wasn't feeling well because Ned put her in the chair with him and she didn't try to get down.

Walt put her into Bouncer's bed so he could go upstairs to sleep.  She was definitely not comfortable and tried several different places to sleep.  I finally fell asleep and when I woke up at 3 to go to the bathroom, she was lying right next to Walt's chair, where she would be if he were sitting in it...and she was dead.

Ned is so great at things like this.  He dug a hole for her grave and then set up things for funeral, including flowers and three little glasses to raise a toast.  And he set out a chair on bricks so I could sit down.

(The grave marker is David's first marker, before we had him moved and buried with Paul in a double grave...how many people have grave markers in their back yard?  It now covers the place where two of Ned's dogs were buried many years ago)

We talked about Polly for a bit and drank a toast. 

We tossed treats into the grave and Ned filled it in.  It seems so strange with no Polly.  It is 4:30 in the afternoon, as I write this, and this is the time when Polly would start barking because she knew that dinner was going to be served at 5.  But it's very quiet.  Now that she's gone, Ned is going to put down the rugs that had to be taken up because of her peeing, and the SPCA came and took all of the left over Polly food.

It's a new world for us.  I never dreamed I would come to love such a pain in the ass.