Farewell · Fri Jun 2, 23:13 by Eleri Straker
My beautiful Poppy is dead.
I’ve owned dogs for years. Poppy was our third Goldie. She was the funniest and sweetest dog you could imagine.
The vet took her for an MRI a few days ago as they couldn’t work out what on earth was wrong with her. When they showed me the images, it was horrific. The tumour in her neck was the size of a tennis ball. And malignant. I couldn’t believe that we could have missed anything that size for so long. But we did.
Up until the day I took her to the vet for what I believed was a ‘minor’ ailment (eczema), she was still running five miles a day and scaring the ducks on the local lake with her joyful jumping into the water with the doggy version of “Yahoo!” So finding out that she was terminally ill came as a heart wrenching shock.
We visited her in hospital and despite being so ill, she still came out into the garden with us and did her usual rolling onto her back, legs in the air and her “Please stroke my tummy” routine. She was so happy to see us and although the massive swelling in her neck had subsided a little, the tumour was even more visible and we knew then that her fate was sealed.
We spent the weekend saying goodbye as we guessed that she would never be coming home. When the vet rang this morning and confirmed that the chemotherapy was not really working and that her time was very limited, we knew what decision we had to make.
I’ve owned dogs for years. Poppy was our third Goldie…
It doesn’t get any easier.
