The Story of Peanut
(Or… a story of the bitey-ist, most nervous unadoptable senior dog ever)
(change of topic for this blog for now)
We said goodbye to Peanut yesterday. We gave him the best life we could for just over 8 of the 16-17 years he had on this earth.
He was our “free” April Fools’ Day adoption from the local pound. We had gone looking for an adoptable dog to be a companion for Gizmo. My father-in-law would soon be moving out of our house and we felt Gizmo would need company during the day while my wife and I were still working full-time.
All the dogs we saw were older pit bulls, shepherds, hounds and other large breeds with questionable backgrounds. We didn’t feel we would be comfortable trusting any of the large dogs with Gizmo (he's a 22 lb alpha dog and would likely have tried alpha dogging any large dog we brought into the house).
As we were walking out, we saw a photo of “Muggsly” on the wall. He had been picked up off the streets after his previous owner had died and had been kept in the back for 3 weeks because he had anxiety being locked up in a kennel. He was being kept with the German shepherd he had been running around with.
“He looks cute” we both thought. “Let’s meet him.” He was spastically happy to be out of his cage meeting someone. I think we were both a bit nervous about his off the charts excitement, but we went home and brought Gizmo back for a meet and sniff with him. After some tentative sniffing, we decided to bring him home.
He had a horrible lion’s mane haircut because the back half of his body was so badly matted they had shaved his back half. He had also just been neutered. So he came with a lot of bad habits.
We learned quickly he was going to be a handful. He was a snapper. Never out of anger, but out of fearful nervousness.
Full credit to my wife for taking the brunt of pushing his buttons snd desensitizing him.
For years he would only make eye contact on his own terms. But when he chose to show affection he went all in with the biggest and wettest tongue. He was a goofy boy, not the smartest and not very trainable. But he loved getting freaky on the bed or couch, and his sheer joy of living with us made up for everything.
And the vet bills… he cost us a small fortune in vet and surgery bills. He was a frequent flyer at IndyVet.
Repairing a torn ear flap from tangling with a larger dog, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) resulting in his platelets crashing, emergency bladder stone surgery, a neurology evaluation to try and assess symptoms from what turned out to be a functional parathyroid tumor, a parathyroidectomy to remove the tumor (as well as a small thyroid tumor that would have turned malignant if it hadn't been found), a corneal ulcer, all with advanced heart disease and progressive dementia thrown in for good measure. The neurology evaluation also told us that he probably had received a traumatic brain injury sometime before we got him (explaining a lot of his behavioral issues).
Over the last 6 months he lost 4 pounds. At his peak fighting weight he was 25 pounds. Most recently he had dropped to 17. Three days ago he stopped eating. Then he stopped drinking. We scheduled an in-home euthanasia service for Saturday afternoon.
With a LOT of tears we said good-bye to the bitey-ist, most nervous unadoptable senior dog ever.
This is a reminder that owning a dog, or cat is a lifetime commitment. Maybe not your lifetime, but definitely theirs.
Ultimately he was a happy boy, and we loved him and will miss him forever.
