The start of our beautiful summery weather was marred earlier this week by the demise of our wonderful Great Pyrenees - Newfoundland cross.
Molly was an old dog, so while we consider ourselves fortuntate that we were able to enjoy her company for so many years, it’s never an easy thing to lose such an easygoing, fun-loving and affable pet like her.
As a much younger dog, Molly had big dog issues when she blew cartiledge in both hind legs. They didn’t both go at the same time; a local vet was able to patch her up, and after a year or so of convalescence, she was more or less as good as new.
She had a bad habit of racing down a steep hill on our property; you couldn’t train her not to. I always thought that was the Pyrenees breed in her - when she was on a mission, she tuned out everybody. Strangers in the driveway were often intimidated by this hulking big, 160 pound black dog barking like hell at them, in spite of anything her master or mistress could say to her. (It was probably her least endearing trait.)
Not that she would ever/could ever hurt anybody. She was big, friendly and fun loving. She loved to prance around the yard, nosing up the grass in an effort to spite you into chasing her. Sometimes she would go at it until she turned a corner a little too tightly, giving her leg a tweek that would settle her rambunctious attitude down just long enough for her to heal.
Molly spent the last two or three years of her life pretty close to the front and back doors of her home. Unlike her masters, she was not fond of scorching hot summer weather; even my wife’s annual late spring haircuts to remove the long, thick fur that is characteristic of the Newfoundland breed failed to provide enough cooling to make summer bearable.
Her daily routine became one of going outside in the morning and wearily following the shade in the yard as the sun moved across the sky. She slept most of the time, which I think got boring for her now and again.
However, she was usually close enough to a walkway in the yard that anyone going by would stop and scratch her belly for a minute and talk to her - so life maybe wasn’t so bad after all.
Molly’s hips began to deteriorate a year or so ago. We thought then that she only had a few weeks left, especially after she stopped eating in the hot weather. We tried to encourage her by buying her dog treats and more expensive dog food - it worked, and it took no time for her to expect a daily diet of snausages and dog biscuits in the morning, followed by a hearty meal of prime dog food for supper. Indeed, she refused to eat anything else.
When the present heat wave hit last week, we could see the effect it had on Molly. During last Monday’s stormy evening, the combination of heat, constant thunder and Molly’s progressive loss of muscle mass, combined to stress her, resulting in her having great difficulty breathing. It was 11 p.m.- and with no local vet responding to my wife’s calls, she bundled Molly into the van and made a midnight drive to Kelowna to the nearest vet available, who concluded Molly was suffering from laryngeal paralysis. At her age - 12 - there was nothing more to be done than to end her suffering, leaving our family with a Molly - sized void that will not be easy to get used to.