Hope

by Maureen Carroll
(West Orange, NJ, USA)

I adopted Hope when she was a year old from a shelter in Virginia. Her time was almost up so I picked her. She had mange and was skinny, musty smelling and a had a hurt tail. I took her to my vet to check her out, brought her home. She got along great with my 6 year old Beagle.

She almost never barked except one night when there was a strange guy in my driveway. She really was a great dog. With time she learned not to run when we put the remote on the couch next to her because she was afraid of everything. When I really knew she felt safe with us when the ladies that brought her to me from Virginia came up with a truck load of dogs and I met them to give them some food and took Hope with me. When they opened the door to their truck she jumped back in my truck shaking, she thought they were taking her back with them. I knew at that moment she felt safe with us.

Anyway Hope was treated like a queen, we gave her great food and took her to all her doctor appointments and she really never was sick. Then after 6 years, she got a tumor in her jaw. My vet debulked and biopsied it and it came back oral squamous. Took her to a vet oncologist and he said the margins weren't, good let's just make her comfortable. How could this be? She had her teeth cleaned not long before this, there was no tumor.

Anyway the oncologist said maybe she'd last a month because it was a very aggressive tumor. Well she lasted a year and a half. Twice during that time we brought her to euthanize her because her mouth was bleeding and she wouldn't eat and we thought she was suffering, and she would not get out of the car. And the second time a tiny piece of bone broke and we took her and after feeding her baby food for months she picked up a hard dog cookie and ate it an hour before her appointment to be euthanized, as if to say I'm fine and I don't want to leave you.

Around August her one eye wouldn't open too much because of loss of muscle mass, another big piece of bone came out of her jaw and she still ate right after that and went for a walk to the park.

She never showed us much pain. She loved us so much that she never wanted us to see her uncomfortable. By this time by the vet was scolding me it was past time to euthanize her, plus another vet told us the same.

I still feel horrible that I betrayed her because every time she went to the doctor she knew I was going to take her back home. I can't get past the fact that I saved her from that shelter and now had to make the decision to take her life.

My heart is so broken over my beautiful Hope. I pray that she knows I never wanted to let her go. She was an angel and I pray that she can forgive me because it is hard to forgive myself.

Maureen