It's not that it came as a surprise. I'd even called the vet a week or so ago to talk to her about putting my lovely girl to sleep. After all, she was ancient. But the vet talked me out of it, and I relented, even though I was pretty skeptical that she could last much longer.
So, following the vet's advice, I pumped her full of aspirin, and she had a great week or two. Then, I woke up about an hour ago, and she died a few minutes later in my living room.
I rescued her in 2002 from a neighbor of my sister's who'd left her stuck in the backyard, tossing out a loaf of bread here and there, and maybe a bit of meat now and again. I used to sneak up to the fence and give her baked potatoes, carrots, dog food, whatever I had on hand.
We never did figure out how old she was, but we did know she had very bad dysplasia and what certainly appeared to be the onset of degenerative myelopathy, a relatively common (and devastating) disorder for German Shepherds.
I'm pretty sure her kidneys weren't the best, either, and hadn't been for years. And, over the past year alone, she'd been through Old Dog Vestibular Disease (which laid her flat for a month), ehrlichiosis and another disease that escapes me at the moment.
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