I know so many of my blogging friends share with us the tales of their four-legged friends, so I thought I’d update you on my Sierra girl dog.  

She had dental surgery last week and she has chronic IBD, so she came home from the vet and just didn’t want to eat for 4 days.  I tried everything soft I could think of — her normal, back-up-for-when-she’s-sick soft dog food, other soft dog food, cat food, scrambled eggs, rice, oatmeal, baby food, cottage cheese.  She’d eat about 1/4 cup of something and then never try it again.  She was losing weight like crazy and weak.  So, today we stopped the pain pills and at my wit’s end, I tossed her a few of my daughter’s cheerios.  She gobbled them right up. So, on a whim, I gave her a handful of hard food and she at it all gone!

Go figure!  I guess maybe the soft food was hard to eat and made her use the front of her mouth more (where the tooth was pulled).  So she’d pick a kibbie up with her tongue and toss it back to the molars – no problem.
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her,  and I was about in tears trying to get her to eat.  And all she wanted was regular food – ha! 
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I wrote that last night, in ultimate relief that we had some progress.  
But tonight I bring you unbearably sad news – Sierra died today.  She was very sick this morning – vomited 10  times at home before 7:30 and I took her to the vet, where they ran tests and ultrasound and found a very large mass of cancer in her small intestine, what was likely cancer all over her liver and fluid in her abdominal cavity.  Even with double doses, they could not get her to stop vomiting.  They said there really was no hope, and they were in great fear of rupturing.
I took her in this morning, worried, but fully expecting to get her stable and start babying her back to wellness from the IBD with medicine and love just like we’ve been doing for the last two years while living with a chronic disease, but that was not to be.  I went to the vet with my adult son to be with her and say goodbye and she left us at 3:30 today.
My heart is broken and her “brother” Tanner has been following me around all day, knowing something is not right.
So, I won’t be posting for a while.  The world lost a wonderful, loving and amazing dog today, and I’m proud to have been able to love her for seven all-too short years.