Sunday, September 19, 2010

Emotionally Exhausted & The Best Dog Ever

Mark and I had to put our beloved, Jantzen down today. My heart is heavy.

Mark and I married in February of 1996. By the time, we hit summer of 1997, we had bought our first home and gotten our first dog. She was a 'rescue' dog. A fabulous mix of basset hound and beagle, and I'm sure some other stuff. A lady who worked at my school with me found her in the dumpster behind the hospital near our school. Her vet told her he thought it was a full-bred blue tick-hound. HA! That is hilarious in hindsight. Mark had always wanted a bluetick hound so we snatched her up when the email went out to find someone to keep her.

Our very first baby. Seriously. We treated her that way. Many of our friends have said they wished they had the life of a Fritchman dog. We treated her like a queen. She was so smart! She was a person in a dog body really. She had this look that would tell you exactly what she thought. She had deep, dark, beautiful brown lines around each eye that made her look like she had tattooed eyeliner. Because we thought she had some blue tick in her, we expected her to be a big dog. But she just kept getting longer and longer - and not any taller! Ha!! It looked like she had been cut off at the knees. She has slept in our bedroom, every night for 13 years. Mark and I wept like babies today.

For some reason, she had been eating some of our berber carpet in my study. She has done this before when she wasn't feeling well and thrown it up and pooped it out. (not alot! just wasn't the first time). She has been puny and throwing up for a few days. We thought she had eaten something that wasn't agreeing with her. We didn't know about the carpet. She was starting to withdraw and lay down in peculiar places in the yard. Yesterday, Mark found a piece of carpet hanging out of her mouth and proceeded to pull about 6 feet of carpet out of her mouth. Put then it was stuck and was pulling on her stomach, too. Last night, she wanted to sleep outside and we found her sleeping in a shallow hole she had dug behind some bushes. After speaking with 2 vets, we realize this is the worst thing that could happen for a dog without $1000s of surgery dollars and even then no guarantee that her intestines weren't already ripped beyond repair. At age 13 for Jantzen and $30,000 worth of adoption expenses, our only option was to let her go. Big SIGH.

Mini-Adoption Update:
3 of the 5 families waiting with our agency received their visas last Friday. They will travel this week to bring their children home. It is our hope and assumption that we will have Zoe's printed by this Friday but there are no guarantees. We appreciate your prayers for Zoe's visa and our emotions this week. Zoe's passport is at the US Embassy in Ghana which is a good sign.

Love to all - a

3 comments:

  1. I loved her tattooed eyeliner. Praying for peaceful hearts tonight. Love you.

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  2. So sorry about your dog. I know it's kinda like losing a child. But, sounds like she had an awesome 13 years with you. Praying for your visa! I know you can't wait to hold that baby again!

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