Mdog has been dragging during our increasingly short walks recently, and several days ago her apetite for her standard dry dog food suddenly diminished to the point of no eating except for cooked rice, chicken, eggs, and cheese dishes. When she exen sniffed and walked away from these without a bite one recent morning, we decided to take her to a local vet for an assessment.

She had her fourteenth birthday around October, so as she enters her fifteenth year I have been expecting some signs of end of life problems. In June she had a stomach flu-like problem that knocked her off her feeding and that was like an early warning, although the vet at that time got her through it OK.

This time, the blood tests revealed elevated constituents that indicate clearly failing or overtaxed kidneys. No surprise, as something has to go first, and this is common among aging people and animals. The vet offered us an infusion of saline under the skin, with the expectation that this would flush her system of some toxicity the weakened kidneys leave behind, and the hope that a reduced-protein diet and toxicity-reducing drugs might give her some weeks or months of renewed vigor and restored apetite.

I held her as they infused a whole liter (!!) of fluid, and she looked very odd, like an wheel barrow inner tube had been inflated under the nape of her neck. Over time, this fluid would disperse through her body and flush out through her weak kidneys, carrying away toxicity in the process.

So we are saying goodbye to Mdog with each passing day. It has been a much more pleasant decade and a half with her presence than it otherwise would have been, bringing joy to the fun times and comfort to the dark and difficult days, and we are thankful for all of that...

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