It's been three months and my heart is still breaking with the reality of not having Robin in my life. Old-timers may remember that I joined nearly 14 years ago to talk about my puppies - Robin and Brodie. and our sweet Ladybug who died at 17 1/2 two years ago (the three dogs in my whatever you call it.) I was bruised and broken from some pretty tough surgeries including a knee replacement and lung cancer. I was lying in bed, high on painkillers, looking for information about my soon to be pups.
Well, we waded through puppyhood, through sheep (We still have 10), and fourteen years later, here a I am again - this time there are are no painkillers for the pain in my heart. When I signed up for a puppy, I was in the midst of lung cancer surgery. In my grief-stricken moments I feel like Robin took that cancer from me and carried it until the burden became to heavy for him.
There are some treatments for lymphoma but given Robin's age (13 and a half at the time), it seemed better to give him as many good days as were available to him and when the day came that wasn't so good, well there's the heartbreak. For Robin, every day was a good one. He never, not once, failed to great me with his usual happy grin and his big white paws on the edge of the bed. Of course he slowed down, but he was always there, always ready when I looked for him. That last day I looked out of the window and watched him, knowing he couldn't see me. He was tired - running on the love in his heart - and he laid down half way across the lawn, head on his front paws. That night was the first night he ever left my bedside. I laid down with him in the hallway and he turned his head. I knew I was making the right decision. It was time but his heart wouldn't let him go easily. Because of the lymph nodes swelling against his throat, he couldn't eat anything except the softest foods and the steroids we were giving him to buy some time were making him so hungry...his final meal was ice-cream which he ate with gusto but it eventually made him sick. So we went on a short ride to see a very kind and compassionate vet; he died in my arms; I buried him at the end of the sheep pasture above the creek. There's a stone on his grave and someday when I feel like I can, I will go sit on it. ETA The time his cancer metastasized to his death was less than three weeks.
The reason I am posting this in Health in Genetics is I want to know more about the genetics of lymphoma in border collies and its early warning signs. Have there been studies done on the genetics of different lines?
I also want to point out in the picture below that Robin (my beautiful red dog of course) had his ears standing straight up. This picture was taken a little over a year before his cancer metastasized... His ears went all kinds of ways most of his life - mostly one ear flopped and another ear forward (I have pictures if anyone is interested). This last year, his ears were always on alert... we laughed and said he was imitating his sister (on the left of the picture - she came back to the breeder and then to us after her previous owners died.) but looking back I now believe that his constant pricked ears had something to do with the lymphoma moving into his lymph nodes.... has anyone ever heard of that?
I would prefer no Monday morning quarterbacking on the end of Robin's life. I made a decision that preserved his dignity. He was horrified and ashamed the few times he was sick in the house... he preferred to be outside but it was getting so cold...he was nothing but fur and bones. The cancer robbed all of the nutrition I could get into him. I miss him so much that it is nearly unbearable at times. We have sweet Brodie and Gidget, but Robin was my everything - He was always there for me - and now he's not.