My Beloved Cayden

Ever since we had our girl Belle abandoned on our property she has been my husbands dog. She will check on me and is happy to see me when I get home but has always followed my husband no matter where he goes. I had to have my own....so I talked him into letting me get my own Border Collie. We checked some rescuse but the same information we were getting was that they would not adopt out another Border Collie to a home that already had one. A friend I was corisponding through e-mail told me about a gentleman that raised amazing working dogs that was only an hour from us.

When I called him he did not have anything available but knew of a gal who had a few puppies left from a litter sired by one of his males. I called the lady and she had two males left. By the time I was able to make it up to her she had sold one so the last was mine. I couldn't have been more happy with him even if he was the last of the litter. The guy I was working for at the time let me bring him to work so we could bond and I did till he was a year old. We were inseperable. He went with me for car rides no matter where I went and on trail rides up into the mountains.

On cold nights he would jump up onto the end of my side of the bed as I jumped into the shower so by the time I got out my feet would never touch a cold bed sheet. He would wake me in the morning to make sure I fed the horses on time and would not leave me alone at night until I fed the horses their dinner. Then as soon as we would come in from the barn it was right to the dog food bag with the bump of the nose as if to say "Don't forget us!"

One Sunday night coming in from feeding the horses Cayden started acting like he was drunk. He has acted tired before from too much frisbee play but this was different. He stumbled behind the couch and when I called his name, standing right in front of him, he looked in the opposite direction as if he did not know where I was. We rushed him to the ER where they were not able to find anything alarming in his tests. We follow up the next day with our regular vet and she too is baffled. We try a few different things through the week and he seems to be getting better. Then I home Thursday night and he is stumbling badly again. We rush him again to the ER and they hold him to be seen by a specialist in the morning....but he does not make it through the night

I get a call in the early morning from the vet that they are doing CPR but not getting any response. She said she would call back in a few with an update.....the call comes......He is gone.....

I never even got to say Goodbye

We drive down there to say our goodbyes and all I can do is burry my face in his hair and ball.

Necropsy reveiled GME Granulomatous meningoencephalomyelitis http://www.addl.purd.../Winter/gme.htm
There was nothing we could have done for him. A precious light has gone out.

After a cold romp outside