Absolutely gutted. RIP Chunky.
He was a brilliant dog and the best companion and friend my family and myself could have asked for over the past 11 years. Always happy to see us wagging his little tail. The house seems empty now without his constant noise whether it be him snoring, grunting or knocking things over whilst playing football.
He was always a youthful old boy but we had seen a downturn in him since the start of the year and then this hot weather of late seemed to knock the stuffing out of him. He had a fit on Monday when he lost the use of his back legs for about 30 minutes so we took him to the vets. From the symptoms they thought it was a mass of some kind on his spine but the only way to be certain was an x-ray which meant a general anaesthetic which we weren’t willing to put him through. A course of steroids and water tablets to reduce the swelling in his stomach which had ballooned up were dispensed. There was a vast improvement in him so when we went back to the vets 2 days later he had lost 1.6kg of water from his stomach. A higher dose of steroids were prescribed. I’d been sleeping on the sofa downstairs next to his bed since the Monday and on the Wednesday night he had another fit for 30 minutes so I rang the emergency vets to make an appointment to put him to sleep, the worst phone call I have ever had to make. We were due to take him on the Thursday at 9:20am.
My wife then slept on the other sofa next to Chunky and at about 5:00am he got up and slowly walked to the patio doors to be let out. Chunky then walked over to his favourite spot in the garden which was underneath an Ash tree where he always slept in the summer when he got too hot. He stayed there about 1.5 hours then walked back into the house where he had a drink of water. I then gave him a bone to eat which he did and then walked over to his bed, wagged his tail one last time and laid down and fell asleep where he then passed away in his sleep peacefully at 7:00am.
I am just thankful that he went peacefully in his sleep and we didn’t have to make the trip to the vets.
We gave him the best life any dog could have asked. Plenty of walks, holidays with the family, meals out to pubs and restaurants and most importantly a lot of love from all of us.
This is the last picture I took of him 11 hours before he passed away.
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PS, keep the pictures coming
Ian, Sarah, Autumn and Meadow
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