I think my entire family went through a love/hate relationship with the dog. I fell in love with him because he really is the sweetest thing and learned to love how hyper he was. My sister at one point took a hairbrush and hit him with it and BROKE the hairbrush on him! All he did was walk away! It was hard to hurt the dog....he even got hit by a car! LOL...I can laugh now but seriously! I wasn't there when it happened (thank God or I probably would have freaked out) but supposedly, the car hit him, he fell over and got back up and shook and walked away!! Again, the dog was amazing and I haven't even topped the list of what this dog went through in his life! Oh, I didn't mention, when we got him, he had a mark on the top of his nose, looked the like he was burnt with a cigarette butt....SO sad. He was also very weird about some things...I can't remember for sure but I think he was scared to death of going near the couches (lol, he got over that fear, no worries!).
After we had Mac for a few years, there came Lucy (as I like to call her Lucille!). She is a full bread Beagle. She came into our lives when my sister, Jenny, got her through someone (I'm not exactly sure of this) and brought her home! My Mom obviously freaked out and I was upset only because I felt bad for Mac that she was invading his territory. Jenny was on the verge of moving out at the time and told my Mom that she would only be there until she got her own place and then Lucy would move out with her. LOL...this is the biggest laugh of a century! Jenny got her own house BUT Lucy did not go anywhere nor would it have been fair for Lucy to go anywhere. My parents house is like a palace for a dog...they have this HUGE backyard they can run in and have a doggie door so they can come and go as they want. Plus, my Mom is home with them so she takes care of them. Lets compare....Jenny's house with no fenced in yard, no doggie door and Jenny at work all day vs my parents...hmmmm!
We all fell in love with Lucy as well. She is such a sweet heart but definently a little instigator!! She loved to play with Mac and get him all excited (yes, in that way of excited too, UGH!). They would wrestle and run around the house and drive everyone (especially my Mom) crazy. Lucy and Mac really became best friends.
So, like I said about Mac, I just TIPPED the iceberg on how this dogs life went! He ended up having (I believe it was knee) problems in both his back knees (could have been his hips, I'm not for sure). The Vet said they recommended replacing BOTH them (It was a few thousand per leg). Well, my parents opted for ONE of them hoping the other one would heal with the help of the new/better one. Well, the other knee was never replaced and didn't seem to be much of a problem (compared to the other issues that came later). Then a few years later he got really sick. Come to find out, he was diabetic! So, he was then on insulin shots every day. This eventually made him blind :(. A few years after that he developed a tumor by his anus. The vet recommended taking this "mass"out but my parents opted not to do this to him. This dog had been through SOOOO much especially with being diabetic so they figured they would just chance it. It obviously was not cancerous (I would think he wouldn't have lived NEARLY as long as he did if it was cancerous) but it did grow. It made it very difficult for him to go to the bathroom. When my parents went to Florida during my wedding in May, 2010, they had to put Mac and Lucy in a shelter. Well, they had a lot of problems with Mac and thought they were going to have to put him down when we were in Florida. He wouldn't go to the bathroom and was having a lot of issues. Needless to say, he recovered when they got home and got put on "special" food that was soft and would help him go to the bathroom.
If this wasn't enough health issues....Lucy has had a lot of health issues over the years as well!! I know, crazy! I guess my parents were blessed with 4 healthy children so this was payback to them! LOL! Lucy was outside one day and basically couldn't breath....my parents tried to get her because she was trying to get underneath their shed in the backyard (thats what dogs do a lot of times when their time comes...they try to find a place to basically die, sad, right?). They finally got her out and rushed to the vet ER. She basically almost suffocated to death. She had a problem (not sure what its called) but the flap in the back of her mouth that goes back and forth when you breath, eat and everything, wasn't functioning anymore. They put her on oxygen when she got to the vet ER and revived her. They ended up doing surgery on her and she was at the hospital for a while (I was to say about a week). It was a very sad time because we really didn't know if she was going to make it. The hardest part for me was that this was sudden and I can't think of many worse ways to die than to suffocate. She pulled through, to say the least. And, she also needed special food to be hand served to her! She is supposed to be elevated when she eats to help the food go down and then (not sure if my Mom still has to do this) you are supposed to massage her throat to help the food go down. She couldn't bark (she lost her voice) and the vets said it likely wouldn't come back....well, they were wrong, it came back. It took a lot of effort from her but she got her voice back. She has her good and bad days but overall, she's doing pretty good.
Mac has spent the past year (or so) going to the bathroom out in front of my parents house where he doesn't have to deal with the stairs (there are stairs going down to the yard from their deck). He goes outside with my Dad while he smokes a cigar and lays in the yard. He LOVED the cold weather. I was just at their house last week and he came up to me to love on me. He hasn't done that in a LONG time so I feel like that was his goodbye to me. His coat was very cold because he was laying outside in the 20 degree weather all morning! In the summer he would just pant the whole time and lay on the a/c registers and cold ceramic tile floors! He also loved going for walks with my Dad, I think those ended when his eye sight started going away :(.
An interesting, crazy story about Mac (one of MANY!). It was night time, Mac came inside from being outside and my Dad felt his coat, it was wet (really wet), he went outside and there was water all around the side of the pool....yes, you guessed it, he FELL in the pool!! Mind you, he is blind at this time so he must have tripped or lost his balance and fell in. It is a complete miracle that he found his way out of the pool one way or another all on his own!
Mac had his good days and not so good days where he would just seem not so good. When I was over at their house the week before they had to put him down, he seemed worse than I had seen him before. He seemed like he was having a hard (that normal) time walking. That progressively got worse as the week went on and he started to not respond to my parents. The morning they had to put him down his legs were giving out on him. My parents took him to the vet (realizing he probably wouldn't be coming home with him) and even the vet said he looked defeated. He was done. He had a wonderful, long (much longer than we ever thought) life but it was time to put him out of his misery. They put him to sleep.
I think through all this, my parents and Lucy are the ones who suffered the most. It's always hard losing a dog, it's like losing a family member. Now, if we can convince my Mom to get a "replacement" dog! haha, I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon!!
(this is my view of Mac and Lucy....my parents probably have SO many other stories have known him so much better in the past 5 years or so)
