Miss her

Rye, my husband and I all miss Amber very much. Rye has never been ok with being left alone for long and now is no exception. I left him home alone a few times and tried bringing him to work with me a few times this week and neither option is agreeable to him. At work he is in a kennel by himself except for when I can take him outside. He yelps, he pants, he drools, he howls. I ended up putting our doctor's dog in his kennel with him and that helped calm him down a lot. When I left him home he was very panicky when we got home from work, panting, yelping, drooling, very happy to see us. He follows us around the house a lot, looking at us.

So we called rent-a-Vizsla! That would be the Vizsla rescue of Idaho lady. I am going over to her house tonight to pick up one of her dogs for temporary company for Rye. I think it will help. I'm sure he is missing Amber specifically but I also know that he doesn't really care which dog it is, just company in some form.
We talked about getting another dog but I just don't want to. Maybe I will eventually but not now.

I am very sad and just cannot believe she is gone. I only had her for 8 years but it feels like I have known her forever.

This was two summers ago, at a place called the birds of prey area.

Amber is gone

On Thursday I took her with me to visit my dad who lives about 3 hours outside of Boise. She hadn't been on any hikes in about a week and a half and was seeming pretty antsy to do something. I had hope! My dad is one of her very favorite people in the whole world. When we got to his place Thursday night she was all over him, licking his face, nibbling his nose (she used to occasionally draw blood!), and leaping up at him, so excited to see him again.
On Friday morning we took everyone on a short hike. It was beautiful there, hills of yellow flowers, perfect hiking temperature. She ran and ran.

I didn't get any good clear action shots of her.

I had her pose in this neat old brick building along the trail.

She ate really well that night and slept so soundly, right by my side, under the covers on Dad's futon.









I woke up this morning to her looking at me, wagging her tail. I reached up to scratch her ears and rub her cheeks. She rolled over and started making her bear cub noises, rooting in the covers on top of me.
We took the dogs on another little hike, so pretty in the shade with butterflies, hummingbirds and wildflowers everywhere. Amber didn't run like she usually does but did enjoy it. I noticed that she was stopping very often to pee, much more than was her "normal".
While Dad and I stopped to watch the creek for a while, she and Rye dug a nice hole together, taking turns, throwing dirt down the back of my shirt. 
She stopped to point something along the trail.

 Back at Dad's house she couldn't stop trying to pee. We drove the 3 1/2 hours home. I picked up my husband and we headed to the emergency clinic. She tried to pee on their lawn, nothing, tried to pee in their lobby, nothing, tried to pee in the exam room, nothing. It was torture.
The vet said she had very enlarged lymph nodes, the "iliac" lymph nodes as well as the "sublumbar" lymph nodes. We talked about the stent. She did not feel that it would give her very much time and that the time would not be quality time. So we made the decision to say goodbye to my baby dog.
Dear Amber,
I will never ever forget you. You are in my heart, you are my heart, forever. If there is such a thing as a dog soul mate, you are it for sure. I can still feel your eyes on me, wanting something. I can still see you at my feet since someone just let off a firecracker. I can still feel your softer than soft ears between my fingers. I can see your eyes light up when I mention "bedtime" or "daddy" and how you would rush to the doorway of the bedroom but then turn around and watch to make sure I was coming too.
I hope that where ever you are, you are not alone. You would be in the laps of the angels if they would let you.
You were my most beautiful athlete. One of my favorite things in the world was to watch you run through the fields. A walk just won't be the same without you. Life just won't be the same either.
I love you my baby dog.

 Amber at around 8 weeks.

Amber at 8 years, 9 months old. Her very last photo.

Two down

and I'm not sure if we'll go back for more chemotherapy or not. Amber had a pretty poor reaction to the carboplatin last Thursday and is only now starting to eat fairly normally again. She is now on sulfasalazine for diarrhea and just today had to go in for some sub Q fluids and an injection of cerenia for nausea. Our oncologist is out of town until tomorrow so I guess I'll see what she thinks. Though even if she thinks we should keep going with treatments it will take a lot of convincing on her part to make me go ahead with it. I sure don't like it when the baby dog doesn't eat! I tried everything I could think of and finally last night she ate some baked ground pork but nothing else and only out of my hand, not out of a bowl. Today after the fluids and anti nausea shot she does seem a bit better. They want her on a bland food diet so she had boiled hamburger and white rice tonight which she ate well.
I have not been taking her on any walks and I can tell how easy it would be if I didn't have dogs to skip exercise all the time! Rye, being 11 years old, doesn't demand exercise and Amber surely didn't feel up to it. I'm hoping by this weekend she'll be back to normal and want a little hike. It just doesn't feel right without some kind of dog fun in each day!
These pictures are from last week Wednesday night, the night before the chemo. One of our favorite spots when it gets hot.
I LOVE when she jumps this wooden fence. It just looks so effortless.

Don't worry, she can NOT catch them, she never ever has and they know it, they swim very slowly, just far enough ahead of her. When there are ducklings she is not allowed in the water.

Rye sees a duck across the river but he is not a swimmer.

Rye found a lovely dead fish to roll on. I normally would have tried to make him stop instead of taking pictures but wasn't in the mood that night. Smelly car ride home and a bath.

BFFs