The Worst Kind

Today was, simply put, a shitty, shitty day (sorry for the language but this is a censored as I can get right now). We very suddenly and very unexpectedly lost a great dog today to a cancer that we never knew he had. Diego was one of my kids up at the Lodges and he and his best buddy Ursa (aka Ursa Bear) were two of my favorite dogs to just hang with when I had a few minutes. They loved each other's company and they played and "wrassled" and always seemed to be loving life - even when Ursa would run up to Diegers and bite his head to get him to play. They were an adorable pair, Ursa, a very sweet Rottie and Diego, a cartoon character of a shepherd mix. He was constantly up to some mischievous thing or another and she would always take the opportunity to get some undivided love while he was distracted. My team leader was taking him to basic manners class and he was making so much progress, it was just a matter of finding the right home.

Diego was nine years old, too young. I sat on the floor with my friends and cried at the thought of losing him when he went into surgery, I made the phone calls to those not present when we were told the vets hadn't even opened him up before he crashed on the table. They spent fifteen minutes doing CPR to no avail. When they did open him up, they found that he was full of blood, somewhere around two liters inside his abdomen, and a ruptured splenetic tumor that went all the way past his pelvis. In spite of a huge tumor, at 1:15 this afternoon, Diego was still up and bouncing around and playing with his Ursa Bear. By 2:00 he was curled up on his bed and wouldn't move or take treats, his gums were snow white. By 6:00, he was gone. We never saw it coming. It is, by far, the worst kind of loss we experience at the sanctuary - he never found his forever home and a family to call his own.

He will be missed dearly and his loss will be felt deeply.

(Photo copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)