Memories of Sebastian

Sebastian in his kennel

                   Sebastian is a black labrador mix dog who came to us with his sister dog, when he was about six weeks old.    Our youngest son had just died, and our daughter accepted two beautiful puppies from a friend of hers who desperately needed someone to take some of the many puppies his dog had.  Although I wasn't initially very pleased about two new puppies coming to the farm, they gave us something to do in the very dark days which followed Daniel's passing.  Since then, I have become grateful for the new lives of those puppies.  Our daughter named one dog Sebastian and the sister dog Zelina.

                  They grew up quickly as little puppies so often do, and then Zelina was spayed and Sebastian neutered. The two of them could have shared a kennel compartment, but we found that they did best in their own kennel rooms side by side.   Neither dog seemed particularly intelligent compared to others we had and this meant that they could be watch dogs, and be stationed at observation posts periodically, but neither could be used to gather or supervise other types of animals.   Still, we don't need all of our dogs to do the same things. They can be loving without being brilliant.

               Most of the time our dogs live to very advanced ages. We have one who is a 15 1/2 year old Siberian Husky !  Several others are also quite old.   Most of the time, our elderly dogs are simply in retirement. We love them and provide whatever they need without an expectation of any kind of work. How ironic that they should continue living, when a younger animal does not.

                 Sebastian would be about seven years old now.  Very recently, something neurological has occurred with him.  He has weakened back legs and looks older than his sister.   He has been receiving heartworm preventive, annual DHLPP vaccines, and rabies vaccine every three years.   We do use tick preventive.   Over night he appears to have become hypoxic and then had a stroke.   Dogs often recover from strokes, but this was not the case.  There was neurologic symptoms and seizure activity.   Sometimes, new onset seizures in a mature dog can be an indication of a brain tumor.   I am a big proponent of running the mile with dogs and I have done well doing so.  However, this dog was suffering badly last night, and we elected to euthanize him.    I have been very lucky in that the many dogs I have had as a part of my life have passed comfortably, and that I have not had to have very many euthanized.  However, when I must, I will.  When it is the right thing to do, I will.

                 This was done at not too great a distance from the other dogs simply because we could not easily relocate a seizing dog who was in pain.  Normally I would have shielded the other dogs from such a thing.
This morning, our dogs, and even Sebastian's sister know what happened but seem understands that we did what we did because we had no other real choice..I will watch them all carefully through the day.

                  We will miss Sebastian very much., and take care of his canine family as well as his sister.  I still feel very sad. It's funny that no matter how much you intellectually accept that for the hundreds of days of joy a dog gives you, we ultimately will experience some days of grief and loss when they pass from here, through euthanization or naturally.  Those latter days of loss never become easy to weather.