Thank you, Melody.

I guess I'm lucky she lasted as long as she did after getting sick suddenly at the end of July. Throwing up stomach-fulls of food for 3 days in a row, followed by a sharp drop in appetite. At first I struggled to figure out what was wrong and just did everything I could to find something Melody would eat consistently. Some things were on and off, most things were one taste and she walked away like she was afraid of it. August was like that while I didn't want to think the worst. She went from a decent weight to some loss, but after September there was still some loss of weight but it wasn't very fast. October was when I worked hard to give her the food she needed and medications required. I often stayed up late, sometimes 3 or 4 in the morning just so I could give her the 1/2 tablet that helped her stop throwing up. I thought things were going in the right direction the first day I watched Melody have a bowel movement outside - at least it wasn't coming back up. Quite unlike the peas I gave her over 3 days in September when I was trying anything to get her to eat - they came back up in 2 puke piles, one large and one small.

The last time I had to deal with a vomiting episode I gave her some rice with chicken broth - Melody didn't exactly care for rice by itself, having eaten it once to calm her stomach. That passed quickly and she was back to eating normally for her eating habits.


November was when she started turning down her favorite crunchy dog bone treat after coming in from being outside to do her business. Much of the time I had to make sure she had something of food in her since she refused to eat willingly - the things she did eat on her own were foods that weren't exactly good for her - potato chips, for example. She'd wait for a pizza crust and I'd offer it. Usually she'd accept it - it was her favorite thing on pizza nights.

December was when there was a dramatic loss of weight, and the past 2 weeks she was unable to keep anything except water down. I even tried giving her some gelatin dessert. It seemed to stay down, but nothing else would. It ended up with her still eating the mint-flavored dog dental bones but throwing them up less than an hour later. There were a few days she figured out how to get outside of the fence and enjoyed some extra activities but came home when I finally yelled for her and she heard me.

I took some photos and you can see the yellow jaundice in the whites of her eyes - it faded at one point but there would always be some amount of yellow there.

Considering the dog Melody was before she suddenly started throwing up, I would not put it past her to have eaten some pieces of death cap or other similarly poisonous mushrooms that I had seen growing in the yard. I should have gone out there with gloves on and removed them but they got mowed down before I could remember to do it. Melody has been known to just eat little bits of whatever that she smells and finds, but her habit of just eating anything remotely edible probably was her downfall. There was no way she'd get anything bad for her in the house. I refuse to believe that some dogs are just genetically prone to just getting suddenly sick like that. Just flip a switch and presto, the liver shuts down? Bullshit.

At least this time there's some explanation to why, so I'm more able to accept Melody's passing. It never gets easier, and there's pain. An emptiness in my heart that I hope doesn't stay that way for long. Marmalade will miss his friend - he liked to lick her ears clean, and he did that up until last year or so when Melody suddenly snapped at him in a way she never had before. Oh well.