I have written about my dog Raya from time to time. She is a Covid dog, we recieved her in the early days of the lockdown June 2019. We had already paid a deposit for her in December 2018, long before the craziness of the period were known and it was trendy to get a dog since everyone was home without anything to do. Because of that, she spent her first year pretty isolated from the world except for interaction with the family.

Little did I know that isolation made her pretty skittish. I remember the first vet trip, we handed the vet tech the leash on the sidewalk and she was drug into the clinic while we waited outside. Because of that, she was initially labelled an ‘aggresive’ dog and required a muzzle for the first three years. Time has gotten her more accustomed to strangers and my trip to the vest last week there was no mention of muzzle at all.

Speaking of trips to the veterinarian, we observed some pretty rapid change of behavior about two weeks ago. My wife took an impromptu trip to the local casino and I was sleeping. I left the bedroom door open because that is what I do when she is gone at night. About three in the morning Raya started whining. I thought that my wife had finally arrived home but when I got up, she tore downstairs and so I followed. Quickly, I got the point that she wanted to go outside. I didn’t think anyone was outside because Raya typically barks rather than trying to get confrontational. But I watched out the window just in case there was a bear or a prowler or something nefarious. I saw her immediately run to the grass to urinate.

That was odd but I didn’t think anything of it. Once does not make a trend. But two days later, we noticed that she had not ate at all. I feed her every morning but some days she didn’t eat all of her food, so again I didn’t think anything of it. We thought maybe something had gotten into her bowl, so we cleaned it. I dumped the food and started with a fresh portion. Still no interest. Another day goes by and she still hasn’t eaten.

We were in the middle of deciding to make a food brand change because of conversations with our new vet about the early death of Snow Flake. So, we decided to get new food and go ahead and make the switch. A new bag, a new brand something was definitely wrong. We couldn’t get into the new vet so we made a call to the old vet to get her checked out. My wife thought that maybe she had a urinary tract infection. Other that drinking a ton of water and not eating regular food she seemed fine.

The vet took a urine same and drew blood. We went home with the understanding that we were going to be back in town two days later to pick up any prescriptions that we needed after our scheduled dentist appointment. We got the call late the next day that this was no urinary tract infection but kidney failure, potentially cancer. There was nothing that could be done.

I want to go back to late 2023. My wife was feeling pretty cruddy and spent a whole Christmas vacation (two weeks) in bed. Raya was right there as if she knew. She would lay by the bed all day long while my wife was feeling miserable. We both suspected cancer had returned but it was the sixth sense of the dog that seemed remarkable. Raya seemed to have the ability to know that things were seriously not right. Now it seems the tables have turned and we were not really in tune with it.

I have to say that this sucks. I never expected to have a dog live forever but I certainly didn’t expect that six years was going to be her lifespan. It doubly sucks considering our previous dog Snow Flake died prematurely at about seven years due to a heart defect causing overheating. I was hoping that she would live more like ten years. I was also hoping that I would observe that she was getting older and that there was a decline causing acceptance that she had lived a full and happy life. I certainly didn’t expect that I thought she was happy one day and dying the next.

I will tell you what hurts the most. I have accepted that she is going to die soon and of course I do not like it. But that we are her everything, she still is trying to do her job. The Burmese in her is watching the flock and keeping them all together and safe as she is declining each day. We are trying to get the call out to the kids and people that might want to say their goodbyes while each day it gets harder and harder.

We will make the call to euthanize if or when we see that it is appropriate. But it begs the question of when is it appropriate? The first couple of days we were hoping for a miracle. We are quite the opposite of cruel. Today she has spent most of the day laying on the floor, but when you approach she starts wagging here tail. The picture in today’s post was from last night at the beach. She was running as if nothing was wrong.

Both my wife and I think that it is cancer. I can feel some lumps in her throat in the area that I would call lymph nodes and I haven’t ever felt. I did some quick research to find that lymphoma can occur in up to 25% of all Golden Retrievers. How ironic is that that Raya was by my wife’s side the entire lymphoma treatment in 2024 and now she will be a victim of that herself.

End Your Programming Routine: I know, dogs are very personal. People that love their dogs that often make no or even negative impression on me. So I get it if this kind of falls on deaf ears, but it is a personal tragedy for me. I thought I would never care about a dog like I cared about Snow due to her very loving personality. I will admit it took me a couple of years but now I think Raya has brought something Snow never did, a loyalty to family first. Although you are not gone yet, you will be missed.