Biscuit

I am home today. My baby G is sick. I decided to stay home with him instead of sending him to grandparents. He needed to be able to lay around in his PJ's. I am thankful to be with him.

About 7 years ago my baby was 3 years old. Apparently he had been reading about a dog named Biscuit. He said over and over again that he wanted a black lab. And he wanted to name it Biscuit. It mattered not that biscuits are not black. The logic of a three year old cannot be questioned. My absent minded reply was always, "We'll see."

We have an Australian Shepherd named Pistol. He is a pistol. His name should be Houdini. The man can get out of anything. Not kidding. ANYTHING.

My neighbor told me we needed to get him a friend to keep him in the fence.

One day I was driving to school to pick up my boys and I saw a sign, FREE PUPPIES TO GOOD HOME. I pulled in for some reason. Low and behold there were 3 adorable little mixed lab pups. One was black, one was chocolate and one was - well I don't remember what color it was. I was looking at the black one. I didn't ask my husband. Bad me. But - she was adorable. A tiny little black ball of fur.

Precious little girl. I kept wondering if I should get her. It was pretty evident that she was in a bad place. They had about 20 dogs and the smell alone was more than I could stand. I took her. I wrapped her in a towel I had in the car and handed her to my three year old.

Who immediately said her name was Biscuit.

We took her home, bathed her and she was ours. As she grew it was evident that she was most assuredly "special" - in many ways. She was not the smartest pup. But you wouldn't find anything sweeter. She loved us well. She put up with a lot - until she wouldn't. She bit Pistol because he tried to hump her. He got a bacterial infection from it that cost us a load of money. She had flea allergies and she lost all the hair on her butt from them, She would cry this horrible cry when she was excited, or hurt, or thought you were leaving her. It sounded like someone was killing her. She would not have her nails clipped . She got car sick. -  managed to vomit anytime we took her in the car for any length of time. She was the smelliest dog ever. Didn't matter if I just washed her, she went outside, she came back in smelling very, very doggy. She was just stinky.

But we loved her.

She was part of our family.

She cracked me up. We would let her out in the back and we would see her just sitting there staring off into space. We often wondered what she was thinking. She was an amazing hunter. She could catch anything. I had to back her black behind out of the tree house at least twice when she ran up the ladder after a squirrel. She had a way of looking at you even when she was being a stinker that made you just want to hug her and kiss her right between the eyes. She had a dead eye - I could throw her a piece of food and it didn't matter how bad a toss it was - she could catch it. She loved chasing the ball. What was funny about it is, she would almost have to wait for Pistol to start doing it before she would catch on. Every time. Just a little slow on the take sometimes. So funny. It made her endearing though. And she was exactly that. Dear.

A couple of weeks ago, she started acting a little strange. Her stomach was bloated and I was afraid she had that "bloat" that labs sometimes get. We cancelled our trip to Mobile and took her to the vet without an appointment. They took x-rays and assured us that this was constipation. They gave her an enema and said she would be fine.

Tuesday I e-mailed them because of work I don't always get calls and asked them why she was still so bloated and told them she wasn't eating. I let them know she still did not feel well. They advised me to feed her pumpkin and that as soon as she evacuated her bowels she would feel better. I tried. She wouldn't eat it.

We opted to take her to another veterinarian. He immediately saw that she had a uterine infection. A serious one. He diagnosed her from the x-rays our previous vet had taken. He said the x-rays looked bad and that was almost a week prior to his diagnosing it. He felt that she was so infected that her chances of making it through surgery were not good. About 30%. And even if she made it through the surgery - he said her chances were not good - she would probably become septic. We asked the vet to make her as comfortable as possible.


That day - I picked the boys up from the bus stop. We met my husband at the vet and kissed and hugged our little black puppy out of this world. It still breaks my heart.

She was going to be 7 on December 1st. She should have been with us a lot longer.

I have struggled with my anger over this mistake. I have gone between wanting to slap the vet that made such a heinous mistake and wanting to fall at her feet just crying - I don't know that I would have words. I want her to know how much we hurt. She simply said she was sorry when we called her and told her. I guess there is not much more you can say.

The fact is - it is useless for me to continue to be mad at her. It is a waste of my energy and it only hurts me. I pray that she did learn to check things closer.



Pistol is missing his girl. He used to get her on his paws and roll over on his back so she was laying under his chin. So sweet. He always let her go down the steps first. When she was sick - he never would touch her food - he wanted her to eat. He normally had no problem eating her food if she left it. But she rarely left her food untouched. We were usually having to get her to stop eating his. He let her do anything she wanted to. He loved her.



 She was such a girl - my only girl in this house of boys. Very emotional - it was good not to be the only one.



But it is done. She is gone. All of the I should haves and I wish I would haves won't change a thing.

I am so thankful I stopped that day and got that little girl. I am so glad G got his little black Biscuit.

She will be missed so very much.

Here are some more pics of our girl.