The Loss of a Class Pet

I think I should mention the second oldest class pet, who didn't get a spot on the welcome page as she passed away a couple of months ago. Doris, our black and white flecked Australian Shepherd, was the second dog after Martha. The two were very close early on; however, Doris began being less and less social with other dogs as Martha became more and more dominant. She preferred to spend her time with people. She still managed to be hilarious. This dog LOVED being taken for walks. Whenever she heard the closet open, she would run from her bed up to whoever opened it and would start "dancing" in front of you hoping you would pull the leashes out.

Then, about three years ago, we were watching my grandmother's dogs, Sam and Emma. Doris, being anti-social with dogs other than Martha and Jessie, couldn't stand being with a pack of four. She began fighting with Sam. Unfortunately, Martha and Jessie joined in, and Doris took quite a beating. We broke it up, and took her to the emergency vet. She had two large gashes under her arm and a cut on the top of her head. She had to stay the night, but when we came to pick her up it was a pitiful yet funny sight. She had two pink casts on each arm and a little gauze patch on her head. She looked annoyed that she couldn't move at all and happy that she was going home.

She came home, and Martha was perfectly fine with her (which leads us to believe it was simply because the pack was so large that the fight happened). We still kept them apart when we were away since we didn't trust Martha with her. It was a good thing, too. After about three months, she was mostly recovered, and the casts and stitches were removed, so we decided it was safe to let them be together. We were heading out to the car to take Rebecca too Irish dancing lessons, when I realized that I hadn't locked the back door. I went back inside, and they were fighting again. We pulled them apart and went back to the emergency vet. The whole process repeated without the humor of the bandages. The other different part was that we decided we have to leave Doris in the house when we left her.

The next two years were fine, and then about six months ago Doris started acting strange. She would stare at us blankly sometimes as if she didn't know who we were. She was walking into walls. She would sometimes accidentally go to the bathroom without knowing it. Once she was even walking on the top of her paws. All of  these were symptoms of dementia. She continued to decline for about three months. We finally took her to the vet when she couldn't stand up on her own. It was because of this that we decided we had to put her down. It was a very difficult decision but her quality of life was very poor. I can still remember her bouncing to go for a walk and her face when she was carried out of the emergency vet clinic in that immobilizing pink cast. We had a good twelve years with her.