Lily is our December 10, 2017 Pup of the Week

There is never a good time to send a beloved pup to Rainbow Bridge, but December is the worst.  During the holidays we count our blessings and hold our loved ones tighter.  Losing a family member not only casts a dark shadow on the upcoming festivities but a cloud reappears each subsequent holiday season as a sad reminder.

Recently we wrote the unimaginable tale of Jasper and Sophie-Rae.  Jasper’s parents knew he was ill, but they had no idea Sophie-Rae was running out of heartbeats too.  The same is true of my blogger friends Lily and Muffin who write the Doxie Life blog.  Their parents knew Muffin had congestive heart failure, but they had no signal that Lily was ill as well.

Lily and Muffin’s parents were at the doctor’s waiting for Muffin to have a follow-up exam when suddenly Lily went into full respiratory distress.   She was immediately placed in an oxygen tent.  Subsequent x-rays showed that Lily had fluid around her heart and her liver was twice the normal size.

An oxygen tent is a very bad place to be.  I went in on a Friday and didn’t come out for more than a minute until my parents sent me here on a Sunday.  The tents are necessary:  Without them, neither Lily or I could have lived another five minutes.  But, we both became dependent on it to live and someday you have to come out of the tent.

Lily departed for the Bridge the day after she was placed in the tent.  There were tear clouds from across the world leaving wide puddles on the ground as Lily climbed the steps to start her immortal life. Her grandparents were there to greet her and to tell her she would never be without a human touch.  She gave the hundreds of kisses.

I got a moment alone with her and asked her why she didn’t let her parents know that she wasn’t feeling well.  “My parents were already worried about Muffin,” she explained.  “They say dogs don’t like to show pain because it is a sign of weakness.  It is not weakness it is worry.  We don’t want to show pain because it makes our parents nervous.  They were nervous enough with Muffin.”

Lily does hope she did not ruin her parents’ Christmas forever.  She loved every Christmas they spent together and hoped this Christmas they will only have good memories of her.  She has vowed to become Muffin’s angel and give her plenty of heartbeats, so her parents do not go through this pain again for a long time.

She wants them to know she will be there this Christmas and everyone to come, twinkling like lights on the tree, singing along with the carolers on the radio, and in their hearts.


Hopefully, Lily’s parents can keep that knowledge in their hearts and their heads and don’t let Christmas be a sad reminder of her but a joyous remembrance.