Update from: “Love in a Cage…Waiting” Posting
My beloved dog 
Brownie passed away on Friday night, October 3, 2008 just before 7:30 p.m. in my arms.
A week before she suddenly became very ill and was seen by a fine neurologist at the MSPCA/Angell Medical Center. The vertebrae in her spine in the neck and mid back area were in very bad condition and inflamed and swollen. She was put on a high dose of prednisone, plus pain killers, to ease her distress and try to begin to heal her. But as each day passed she grew worse. The pain radiated from her neck and back into her back legs until she was no longer able to stand on them. Her front legs were also failing, not because they were weak, but because the disease process in her spine affected the nerves that connected her spine to her four legs.
By this past Wednesday night she no longer wanted to eat. After just a few steps with assistance she collasped onto her side again and again. I brought her back to the hospital hoping that their more expert care would help her. But despite everything, she got worse almost by the hour. The pain was so severe despite pain medication that shortly before she passed away, her breathing rate was more that 90 times per minute.
I wanted her to live, to be with me. Except for this horrible problem, she was in excellent general health. But her suffering was so great, the possibility of her recovery nearly zero, that I knew in my head and heart what she was telling me in the way a dog can tell a person…..
I held her in my arms and told her how fine a dog she is and how much I love her and thanked her for sharing her life with me as a kind doctor gave her a painless injection. She only heard my voice and felt my arms holding her and my face so close to hers in the seconds it took to stop her suffering.
I stayed alone with her for more than an hour after that. Patting her. Feeling her beautiful thick fur. Talking to her soul. And seeing that she was at peace.
She is in my heart and always with me. My sweet Brownie who was almost always in the same room I was in for all those years.
My Brownie, I wish my all my heart that this awful medical condition never happened to you, and that you didn’t get so much worse so fast despite treatment. I know that in the times to come I will be able to look back and see it all more clearly. And I know that for the rest of my life I will miss you, my sweet, gentle pup. I am so proud and fortunate that I was “your person.”
