Today, we lost a very important part of our family. Though we were only able to spend the last 3 years of his life with him, it was 3 of the best! Xeus, our Rott/Pit Bull mix, had to be put down this morning. A couple of months ago, he started having some trouble with getting his back legs to function properly when he walked. It came on almost overnight at first and gradually worsened. We just thought that he was having problems with his usual bout of flea dermatitis, due to constantly turning around and chewing on himself at the base of his tail, combined with the weather getting colder and us not being able to take him swimming, as we did all summer long at Table Rock Lake. So, we took him to the local vet(Dr. Michael Kuhl), whom mis-diagnosed him with arthritis and inflammation of his joints where they joined into the balls of his hips. He then prescribed him a medicine that, at first, seemed to make improvements, and also told us to push him to exercise, such as taking him for walks many times daily. So, that's what we did, per the advice of our trusted veterinarian. On December 2, 2008, we noticed that within a matter of hours he had lost much more control of his back legs, so we rushed him to Springfield to the Emergency Veterinary Clinic at 11 p.m., where he was re-diagnosed with having a possible degenerative myelopathy, disc disease or spondylosis. In otherwords, the nerves going from his brain to his back legs that tells it how to fuction properly had a sort of 'interference' or a disc in his back was out of place, such as a broken back in humans, all of these dynamic conditions which can possibly worsen within just a few hours or even minutes. He was then placed on strict confinement and exercise control for 3-4 weeks and prescribed Prednisone-a steroid. We were told that if strict confinement was not maintained, he could potentially get worse and become completely paralyzed by further disc extrusion. At first, we thought that getting him on this strict confinement would be very easy for us to maintain, since he really didn't have any desire to do anything, but as he started treatment with his medicine, he thought he was super-dog! We constantly found him on the couch or asleep in our bed and he often tried taking off into full-trot out of the house, while slipping and sliding on our linoleum floor, to the yard. We finally gave up, not wanting to have to make him stay in one place or confining him, because in our hearts we knew that this day would come, regardless and we were bound and determined not to make his last days even worse, because we had to make him not move unless necessary. Think of it like this, if you knew you were going to die, would you want someone telling you that No!, you can't go out and enjoy the last days of your life, you have to lay in this bed, knowing that if you tried hard enough, there were still things that you would be able to enjoy!?! We all knew that he wouldn't make it to see another drop of lake water on his fur, another squirrel to chase up a tree or another 'cat fight' in the house to break up using his hilarious 'Sheriff Xeus' techniques, as he always did when the cats played too rough around the house! Sadly though, we awoke to find him not acting right Christmas Day. That night, he only worsened. All we could do was try to make him as comfortable as we could to get through the night. I then awoke to him whining at approximately 3 a.m. December 26th. When I opened my phone to give me some light to see what was going on and peered over the bed on the floor where his spot was, I found that he had deficated on himself. I woke up Kevin and we got him cleaned up and thought, well, maybe he has to pee? As we went to coax him off of his bed, we noticed that he had absolutely no control of his body starting at the middle of his spine and all the way back. His skin on his lower half was even cold to the touch. That's when we knew we had to make our decision. At 8 that morning, I called the other vet(Allphin) in our town and made an appointment for 11:20 for euthanasia. As we drove him to the vet knowing that this would be is final car-ride, Kevin and I became very numb, unaware of what we were about to face. We knew what we were about to do, but we tried hard to put it out of our minds. When we walked into the vet clinic with Kevin using a towel as a sling to support his back end and I holding onto his collar and leading him forward, the air became very heavy! They placed us in a room where we allowed Xeus to lay on the floor and the vet tech came in and discussed our cremation options for him. The vet then came in as Kevin and I were on the floor with him and began the process, as Xeus layed his head in my hands on my lap, looking up at me and Kevin scratching his side. When she put the needle into the vein of his front leg, he never flinched, he just kept his eyes fixated on mine. Not only did I see the sadness in his eyes, but I felt it, too. I then began to cry and just as the euthanasia took effect and he started to close his eyes, I told him I Love You one last time and watched him fall off to sleep, when what I really wanted to do was yell at the Vet that we take it back and to stop! Inside, that's what I was screaming. For any of you that have ever lost a pet or had to put one down, you know exactly what I mean. As my father-in-law said to me today, sometimes our pets become more a part of the family than the actual people in the family and he's right! Xeus was never 'just a dog' to us! He was more intelligent than many, many people I have ever come into contact with. He never let us down! He knew how to do just about every trick you could think of, including holding a dog biscuit on the bridge of his nose or in his mouth until he was told that he could have it. I once timed him holding a dog biscuit in his mouth and he lasted over 45 minutes before I finally gave in, due to the massive amount of drool beneath him! We will always remember him and forever cherish the time that we were able to spend with him and he will most certainly always be missed. At this time, I don't believe there will ever be a day that we don't look back on the time that we spent with him and remember what a great part of the family he became...
R.I.P. 'Sheriff' Xeus 1995-12/26/08
~You will forever be in our hearts, until we meet again...~
Love, Your Human Mommy & Daddy