George

George was a heartbreaker. He showed up as a stray at a shelter, very badly emaciated and newly blind from glaucoma, moving with great difficulty, but with a nice shiny coat and not-too-long nails and an incredibly gentle manner. The shelter volunteer who works with us pleaded that we take him in, but then the labwork came in showing end-stage kidney failure. And then they found giardia. Judith and Lee decided that he’d better come to them for hospice care, hoping to make him as comfortable as possible and let him feel loved and part of a family again. He arrived with a wagging tail, having already captured the transport volunteer’s heart. We filled him with pain meds, found that his reluctance to move was mostly great caution from his lack of vision so treated his eyes as much as we could, and tried to get him to eat. When we discovered that his liver was also shutting down it was obvious that there was nothing more we could do for him. He slept for the first 2 days, exhausted from his shelter experience and being out on his own, but then started exploring and enjoying our company. He figured out the dogdoor, getting off the deck, getting onto a soft dogbed, and could get up sometimes without the fancy lifting harness we used to help him. But the 4th day he lost interest in food though he was still active and wagging, and on the 5th day he stopped eating completely, and it was time to end his struggle. George was such a wonderful example of how blind dogs can adjust to almost any situation, and how dogs forgive and can love and trust despite betrayal, and how abandoned old dogs can accept love and care offered by strangers. Humans could learn so much from them. We loved this gentle old guy and believe that he knew that he was safe again with us. George passed away July of 2015.