granddaughter coraline

granddaughter coraline

grandson mason

grandson mason

grandson jaxson

grandson jaxson

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

08JUL15 - Anchorage, AK (a very sad goodbye)

Wednesday morning, 08JUL, we had the extremely hard sad task of saying goodbye to Gumbo, our one-eyed Jack Russell.  Gumbo’s overall health started noticeably declining several months ago.  Nothing dramatic, & he was still pretty active & alert for a fifteen year old.  We were most concerned that he would vomit for no reason every now & then.  We had two Vets check him on this; & both could only offer suggestions without invasive procedures.  Something we were not going to do.

Anyway he was not in any pain, or showing signs of distress; plus he was very active.  So decided to live with the inconvenience of his regurgitation, & proceeded with our long planned RV trip to Alaska.  Unfortunately his health has declined rapidly in the last two weeks.  He was not in pain, but he lost all interest in food (even when offered items he never got before – raw egg, cooked egg, cake, deli meats, table scraps, etc, etc).  If he did eat something, he could not keep it down.  At the same time he was losing mental faculties, coupled with significant weight loss; forcing us to make a difficult decision after many tears & much debate.

For the first time in 25 years we are without a dog.  Because of how empty we felt afterwards, we decided to just take a short drive back to some place close & familiar - the FamCamp at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, AK; & do nothing else.




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