Goodbye my best mate

At 7.23pm tonight I received a phone call I had been dreading, according to the vets there is now nothing more they can do for my best mate.

For a while he was responding well to massive doses of steroids, he seemed to be getting better and was pain free until two days ago when one of our other dogs happened to bump into him, almost immediately he was back to being in excruciating pain.

So back the vets he went, yesterday we booked him in for a MRI scan and a spinal tap, both results came back clear as a bell, this confused the vet no end as he was almost certain that the MRI would show a trauma of the spinal cord in his neck or that the spinal tap would indicate a cancer or infection of the spinal cord.

The next course of action was to have a CAT scan which he has had this afternoon at the hospital, sadly this has shown up what the problem is, it seems he has massive spinal trauma in his spine where it connects to the base of the brain, the prognosis is that this trauma is inoperable.

The Vet has told me that given the extent of the injury and its close location to the brain there is nothing more they can do for him and that to keep him going any longer would be cruel, tonight he is being sedated with massive doses of morphine and at 10.00am tomorrow I am going to go in and be with him when they put him to sleep for good.

I have experienced more than my fair share of pain in this life, I have had more than my fair share of family death and illness, yet nothing has ever made me feel so helpless and hopeless.

The thing about my mate is that he was a bit special, he is a born leader and helped numerous dogs with social problems (all caused by humans), there is many a dog in our area who owes his life to my mate.

Mrs Bruv and I often take in dogs who are on their last chance, we rehabilitate them and manage to re home them once they have been with us for a while, 70% of the work was done by my best mate as having a natural pack leader who was calm and assertive was the secret to be able to rehabilitate all these other dogs.

So those of you who care please raise a glass or two tonight to my best mate Tuffy (named after the cricket player), he was the best mate any bloke could ever hope for and one who always gave unconditional love and affection, go well my old mate and may you rest in peace big fella.

UPDATE. 27/02/10

At 10.45am this morning my mate lost his battle, when they bought him into the room the poor old bugger hardly knew where he was such was the level of morphine they had pumped into him, despite this, it was obvious that he was still in excruciating pain.

I lay on the floor with him and he managed to give me one last lick as he slowly slipped away.

He is pain free now, his suffering is over.

But god how we miss him.