Little girl or Punky Pete or even the little Energizer Bunny was a strong willed, stubborn and funny little dog at times which served to make treating her difficult when it required pill giving, force feeding or even bathing. As the picture so easily suggests her look was do it and you die...
Sadly on the last night of her existence I force fed her and while I hated doing it I knew that without it she was wasting away. If I had known the end was so near, I would have left her be, allowed her some peace and quiet. If I could have chosen a better way, her last memory of me would not be one of force feedings and cramming pills down her throat and I believe she was upset with me for all of these things. Towards the end when I tried to go near her she thought I was going to "do" something to her and she would run from me. It broke my heart because she had always come to me for comfort when she was afraid and that one thing we shared was changed.
We had gone out earlier in the day on Sunday the day before Labor Day, but had come home early to spend some time with her and to make sure she was ok. We were hopefully watching for any improvement and we kept saying let's just see how she does tonight and then let's see how she does today and on it went. When we arrived home she had pooped and it was terrible diarrhea and I spent a very long time cleaning it up off the carpet in my office...this was the first time she had had this after six weeks of chemo and it was awful. I cleaned it up only to see her have it again outside and it was like a shooting stream. We again attributed it to all the IV fluids she had had and the two chemo drugs they had given her in the last week. That night, Sunday, she wasn't showing signs of improvement and if anything she seemed very weak. I force fed her a very tiny, minuscule amount of food, barely a full syringe and she fought me all the way and I noticed as I tried to give her food, her back legs were giving out and she was falling over. Again we thought only that it was weakness and it made sense since she hadn't eaten much in the last week. I figured that feeding her was the only way to restore the strength she had lost and I was determined to fight the battle for her even if she didn't want to. I don't know what she might have been saying, but looking back I think she was tired of it all and just didn't want anything to do with eating or taking pills. But we aren't given knowledge until after something happens, and I feel as if I was misinformed as to how seriously ill she was.
So that night we watched her on the couch, where we had to put her to keep her in our view and she pretty much stayed there, hiding under the pillows which was not unusual for her and sleeping somewhat comfortably, we thought. The only other indication that something was just not right was when she got down off of the couch and was so weak that she nearly hit her head, she laid down right where she landed and had her head partially off the ground and was not able to find a comfortable position. We both looked at each other and said pretty much at the same time, this doesn't look good, but again, we kept thinking the poor thing is probably so tired and weak, what could we expect...and because she was suffering from what appeared to be uncontrollable diarrhea we needed to be sure the pill we gave her worked before we could let her stay in her crate so we put together a soft and comfortable spot in the guest bathroom and planned for her to spend the night there. In all of the time we'd had her she had NEVER been put anywhere but near us or with us or in her crate at night, so to have her tolerate this without crying and whining, was unusual and we hoped she would be ok there.
It hurts to think that I made her spend one of her precious nights left in a strange place and without us near but we were trying our best to minimize the damage she could do with diarrhea and possibly vomiting so we put her where we thought we could easily clean up and keep her safe and that was the only alternative we had at the time.
Little did we know what a struggle she was having and we would not know until the next day.
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