Okay, this post is going to be tough.
But I thought it might be helpful to those who lose their fur baby and can’t seem to get over it.
So, as tears drip down my face, here is the story of my wonderful Lexie.
Lexie was my Piebald Doxie that we had picked up only 6 short years ago.
My son was continually pestering me to get another Dachshund after we had lost our beloved Katie 3 years earlier.
Katie was a black and tan Doxie that I had rescued from an abusive family in Kentucky. I loved that dog so much and putting her down (after a stroke) devasted me.
I swore I would never have another dog because the pain of losing them was just too great.
However, my son was persuasive and finally I relented. We found one in the local paper that was a few weeks old. It was a family, not a breeder or puppy mill. They had one puppy left, a gorgeous female about the size of my hand.
We named her Lexie and brought her home.
My husband suggested that we buy a cage and do what the training manuals said.
That lasted about 3 hours.
As soon as we went to bed, I grabbed that tiny baby and put her in bed with us.
And she slept there every night for the next 7 years.
We knew immediately that we had a special dog.
She was incredibly sweet and didn’t have that stubborn streak that Dachshunds always seem to have.
Lexie loved to play and would chase my son from one side of the house to the other barking and nipping at his heels.
Not surprisingly, she was a great lap dog who liked nothing better than to put her face directly on my neck while I slept.
How many other people refuse to move (even though they are uncomfortable) for fear of bothering their dog?
That was me!
Every night, she would begin whining and dancing to let me know that it was time for our walk. I would grab the leash and she would begin jumping and barking hysterically.
She LOVED to walk at night.
We live in a gated community and it is a safe place to stroll. Lexie would walk as far as I wanted to go on her tiny legs. Once I was feeling good and went 4 miles. She stayed with me the entire way.
We did have some problems, however.
First, our little dog went ballistic every time the doorbell rang. The barking was loud and was nearly impossible to stop.
I tried a water bottle and sprayed her in the face when someone came to the door.
It didn’t work.
She would just duck her head and keep barking.
We never solved that problem. I would just take her to another room when I knew company was coming!
The second problem with Lexie was housetraining. She never quite figured it out in her short life.
We had a rug near the front door that she would inexplicably pee or poop on for no reason.
And if it was raining?
Forget it.
Another problem was that sometimes when I let her out and turned my head for a second, she would wander off into the neighbor’s yards. The problem was that I would completely panic when I couldn’t find her.
I was terrified of losing her.
I remember once, when she was a tiny puppy, I couldn’t find her anywhere. My son and I looked everywhere, and I was convinced that she had gotten out and been kidnapped.
Just before I completely lost my mind, I was yelling, “Lexie”!! at the top of my lungs and I thought I heard something from the bedroom.
I rushed into the room and looked around. Nothing…
Then I got down and looked under the bed.
And there, stretched out and completely oblivious to the chaos she was causing, was my Lexie.
Problems aside, EVERYONE loved Lexie.
She was probably the sweetest dog that ever lived (no bias here!).
But she seemed cursed. Although we took care of her like she was one of our children, she seemed destined to have health problems.
It started when she was around five.
Lexie suddenly began having urinary trouble. She would squat and drip a little and then try again.
We rushed her to the vet, and they discovered a ton of bladder stones.
They performed surgery immediately and removed the stones. However, the stones returned twice more in the next two years, so it became a recurring problem.
During this time, my poor baby began to put on weight and suddenly couldn’t walk very far.
We were very concerned because it was obvious, she wasn’t herself.
Then I began to notice that she seemed to be having trouble seeing. She would walk into bar stool legs and not be able to find a treat that I tossed to her.
We took her to University of Florida animal hospital which had a great reputation.
Their staff did a full exam of Lexie’s eyes and pronounced her incurably blind.
We were hopeful that despite her weight gain and sudden blindness, we would have her for a long time.
But it wasn’t meant to be…
Soon after we discovered she was blind; I was rubbing her belly and felt a large lump.
Another trip to the vet and we discovered a large cancerous lump had attached itself to her gall bladder.
We were offered the choice of surgery to try to remove it or just let her live out her life.
My husband and I agreed to try to prolong her life with the surgery. However, a few minutes after the surgery was supposed to start, I got a phone call from the vet. She said there was no way to remove the mass.
What bothers me to this day, is that I held Lexie close in bed the night before surgery and realized I didn’t want to make her go through the surgery.
But I didn’t mention it to anyone and didn’t follow through on my feelings.
So we brought our girl home the next day which was a Saturday morning. She was stitched up and a little sore but seemed to be in good spirits.
I was amazed at how much energy she had and suddenly had a little hope.
Then, tragedy struck.
She suddenly laid down and wouldn’t move. She had a crazy look in her eyes. Something bad was happening.
I just can’t talk about the next few hours because it is so painful. Finally about 3 am, I called the UF Emergency clinic and asked if they put down dogs.
They did, so we made the 20 minute drive in the rain with tears streaming down my cheeks.
They examined my baby who was obviously dying and agreed she needed to be put down. She took her last breath a few minutes later.
We left her there for their cremation program.
Like everyone else who has lost a beloved pet, I was in shock and incredibly upset. I was especially mad at myself for getting Lexie the surgery in the first place.
When we received her ashes, I took them to the hiking trail where she and I used to take long walks. It was her favorite place as she loved the smells and chasing the squirrels that always seemed to be around.
My son filmed it with his phone as I dropped the ashes off the side of the trail and said goodbye for the final time.
Although she only lived 7 years, I will never forget my beautiful Lexie. ☹
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