Our Girl Nina

We're at the end of our run with Nina. She's been hobbled with a mass (cancer, essentially) and this morning, she wouldn't get up for anything. Her breathing is labored, and the mass has depleted her of muscle and bloated her right rear leg. It might not be today, but it won't be very long before we have to say goodbye for good, and it makes me very sad. Since two days before Christmas, we knew we were closing in on the end, but it was pretty shocking. Just a month before that, she was still chasing rabbits and jumping for snow balls like she was a puppy. Quick and sharp, right up to December. Then, she had a limp, and then she started coughing abnormally. Her white blood cell count was elevated, which prompted an x-ray, which exposed the mass. Kind of took the joy out of Christmas for us. (Except for Eli; he's a bit too young to process this stuff appropriately, and I think we did a decent job of keeping things fun for him.) So, today it seems pretty bad and we do not want her to hurt. I also know that she keys on our emotions as well, so I'm trying to be cool around her. She's getting table scraps for the first time, and all the treats she's interested in gobbling, once her pills are taken. This is the sad end to 13 years of puppy frenzy, singing, running, jumping, chasing, consoling, wagging, licking, protecting, and amazing. I will miss Nina terribly. I love her. We all do. She made us a family a year after we got married and was with me for a full quarter of my life. She had a knack for knowing what to do, almost unbelievably so. I'll write about that stuff in the coming weeks because I don't want it to fade over time, but it feels strange to eulogize her when she's still waiting at home. The hardest part about all of this is that I know she'd want to put her head on my lap to make me feel better, but she just can't. I will say this - I've been around lots and lots of dogs in my life, but I've not met one like Nina. She's the best.