Muffin (part I)

**The next six or seven posts will be about my dog's death in 2007.  I learned so much through her death, but the questions for you to apply don't come until the last posts:)**

Yesterday, we had to put our dog, Muffin to sleep.  She was a cute Yorkshire terrier just shy of being sixteen years old.  Muffin was the only dog my family ever had.

The reason I am writing about Muffin is because of all of the things I learned through Mom’s death, I applied with Muffin.  I even learned new things as a result of Muffin’s death.  As Muffin’s last week progressed, I noticed so many parallels between her death and Mom’s death.  It was astonishing to me. 

Spring break was coming up, and I really wanted to get Muffin to the vet because I knew she wasn’t breathing in enough oxygen at night.  She would make a series of sounds, “snorts” through her nose as if she were trying to catch her breath.  She was also not eating very well at all.  I had been praying the Lord would give me wisdom as to whether or not I needed to take her to the vet. 

I made an appointment for Thursday afternoon because we were going to Dad’s house on St. Simons the next day.  I prayed the Lord would give him wisdom and diagnose the problem.   I talked to Dr. Mosher for a while, and he said he would like to take an x-ray to better assess the situation and have more information.

The vet tech brought the x-ray machine into the room where we were, and I knew something was wrong since he wanted to show me the x-rays.  Dr. Mosher came back into the room and told me Muffin had a collapsing trachea.  Her trachea had collapsed to a small size, and it was though she was breathing though a straw.  She was making the noises because she was not getting enough oxygen.  He also noticed her liver has enlarged.  We knew we would have to treat that, but not today.  He put her on three medications. 

I had been talking to the kids about Muffin not doing well to prepare them.  I also talked to them and told them to spend time with her because she might not be around very long that it could be a day, a month, or a year.  Lauren said she wanted her to make it until she was sixteen.

I had already called Dad and asked him to call the vet on St. Simons and find out what they did if a dog needed to be put to sleep at night.  I did not want to be in a panic and wanted to have all the information.  I had even asked Dad if I could bury Muffin in his backyard if I needed to.  All of the things I learned are a result of having everything all planned out concerning Mom.