It won't be long now...

A few more days, at most.

Z-dog is on her last leg. Her last 3 legs to be exact.

The tumor is huge. And hard. She's licking it a lot, so it must feel wrong to her in some way - painful or itchy or just generally bad. Today she hopped out the door on three legs. I can't bear to watch her anymore.

She doesn't want to get up for breakfast anymore. For the last couple of days, she has been leaving food in her bowl. A huge sign that something is wrong.

I called the vet, and based on her last visit a few weeks ago, and my description of her now, she hasn't got much time left. They wanted to give her some sort of patch that they would put around her tail. Except that she doesn't have a tail. :) I guess they could stick it on her belly. They called it something medical-sounding, but it's basically an end-of-life-keep-'em-comfy morphine patch. At $169 for 4 days worth, and the fact that it doesn't start working for about 2 weeks, I ruled that out. Morphine pills were $24 for 6 doses. That would be 3 days worth, tops.

I'm not going to medicate her anymore. I can't afford it, and I don't want her to be all doped up. She is still on her Rimadyl.

I can't afford to have her cremated privately either, so she will be cooked with the rest of the doggies and sent off to doggie heaven. Burying her would be too difficult, not to mention if something dug her up because we didn't get her deep enough. Don't want to go there.

The vet says I can bring her in any time, to, well, you know.

I'm very sad, but I also have a feeling of peace which tells me I must be doing the right thing.

I hope she knows that.

Or doesn't know anything. That would be even better.

Bye Z-dog. I love you.