[AnnieB3]

Last Friday, on what was otherwise a beautiful spring morning, I let my dear Shih Tzu Teddy go to puppy heaven. He had been increasingly, though subtly, sick for months and had been rapidly going downhill recently with what we surmised only two days beforehand to be an encephalopathy, which has many causes. It’s hard to say for sure what it was exactly since I would not do the invasive testing while he was that ill nor the necropsy after his death to find out. I am still waiting for some blood tests to come back. I find it ironic that he had a neurological condition which could be figured out only by his "clinical" signs. What I do know was that he had neurological issues, was probably going blind in the past few days and was in severe pain which the Tramadol was not eradicating. He needed to be set free.

We ended our life together outside on our backyard deck, surrounded by birds singing and the squirrels he loved to chase. He had become sensitive to light, so it was kind of the clouds to block the sun until he left. After ten minutes of sitting alone with his spirit, I had gone back inside to our favorite spot on the porch. As I put my feet up on his footstool, the sun then shone through the highest window, directly on me. Teddy loved sitting in the sun. A couple minutes later, after opening the window in case his soul wanted to sit by me, my Mom and I saw the first baltimore oriole of the season come to sit twice on the hummingbird feeder which was inches from where Teddy and I said goodbye. We haven’t seen one since. I choose to believe that these gifts from nature were more than a coincidence.

Although we had barely eight years together, with him dying a few weeks after his 8th birthday, each day was filled with great joy and love. I am trying to focus on that and not on the enormous pain I’m in. There have been a few moments in the past week or so when I felt like I might join Teddy due to the stress on my body and soul. The house is so empty now but I can still “see” him everywhere, which is both comforting and saddening.

He was an amazingly sweet dog and had such a dinstinct personality and way about him. He was greatly loved by so many. There won’t be a day that goes by that I won’t think of him. I was blessed to have such a gentle soul in my life.

Annie

The first photo of Teddy is him waiting for food by his "Teddy table" in the sunshine. The other is when he was younger, before we cut his "ponytail" off for good. Here's another of him on his footstool, watching for squirrels and bunnies.