It has taken me two days to write about this but Tuesday we lost our Sadie. She and her sister Roxie, who we lost to heat stroke several years ago, were our first Great Pyrenees. They all have been good dogs but Sadie was on a different level. She was so protective that if she found an egg she would guard it and literally fight our two boar hogs to keep them away. She will be missed. She had a good life and 11 years is about average for the breed.

She developed a raspy growl at times almost a year ago but it didn’t slow her down. Over the last couple of weeks it got much worse even making a whistling at times. She got to the point that she couldn’t cool herself by panting so we retired her to the house. The episodes were becoming more frequent but it wasn’t a constant condition. Most of the time she would lay under the ceiling fan enjoying the A/C. We’d let her out and she would do her business and roll around with the other dogs as if nothing were wrong. Then she would get winded and come back inside. I was convinced it was her heart and expected she would go to a heart attack within the year but we ended up taking her to two vets. First last Saturday when she was having some trouble. It got worse in the vest office because she got stressed and agitated. After x-ray’s and tests the vet had no idea what was going on. We took her home and within an hour she was back to her normal self. Monday night she woke me up 3 times so Tuesday morning we took her to our other vet and he new what was happening as soon as he saw her. He said she was suffering from a paralysis of or collapsed esophagus. He said her vocal chords were closing up and that is why she was having trouble getting air and making the whistle at times. She was the worst I’ve seen her in his office. After discussing everything with him and Lisa we decided it was time to let her go. We might have gotten another year with her or she might have had an attack and suffocated while we were at work. The idea of her suffocating was more than we were willing to risk.  We said our good bye’s. Her body is now resting in our Pet Cemetery but I believe she is still on guard duty.

Unfortunately the hound in the above picture won’t be with us for much longer either. Ladybugs hips are failing. She is getting medicine twice a day and is holding her own for now. One of these days she won’t be able to get up and we will have to do something. Until then she is an inside outside dog and I will be building a ramp this weekend to make it easier for her to get in and out of the house.

Here are a couple more pictures of Sadie. One is her recovering after surgery on her ear. The other is her doing what she did best. Protecting and comforting a baby goat. Timmy was new to the farm and the other goats hadn’t accepted him yet so Sadie laid down next to him so he would stop crying. What a good dog she was.