Dispatch about 7:30 am. He was gone at 8. He wasnt in pain and only really sick for a couple days. We should all be so lucky. He passed away yesterday 24 hours and 9 minutes ago.


This is a repeat of what I wrote on facebook. This was Dispatches blog in the first place.......

I knew I'd be one of "those" people some day. Dispatch Bichon died in my arms this morning about 8 am after basically a 2 day illness. I'd taken him to vet and he had congestive heart failure, an infection, and a heart murmur, lungs had fluid in them. He let me bring him home with 3 different medicines, told me to call if he got worse. But Dispatch Bichon was gone before he opened up. He was fine the last part of July which was when he was in vet. He'd had a cough since then but he's acted like hacking up a lung was his life mission for the last 10 years, he was dramatic.

He played after we got home Sunday. Seemed to be tired Monday and then had a horrible night Monday night but was better Tuesday morning. I had something important to do and got home mid afternoon and he was worse again. That's when he got the diagnosis of chf. The vet did say when he got over this spell he needed more teeth out and a vaccine updated. We had a bad night, he ended up wearing a baby diaper with a hole cut out for his tail. He left it on which says how sick he was. We spent at least an hour in the chair in living room with his head on my shoulder in the middle of the night. He did sleep a few hours but became very needy toward morning.

We had someone come to the house at 7 am and I checked on him every 5 to 10 minutes....I took a photo like 15 minutes before I found him by front door, he was breathing the same. I was going down to old house so I went to get his towel and when I picked him up he sort of shuddered. I got in pickup and I think he passed in pickup with me petting him. I think he knows I picked him up because he did protest the diaper 20 minutes before that. I don't know really if he knew much after we got home from vet but he did get off couch and go in kitchen and drink a long time this morning under his own steam.

I took him to be cremated. It will take a while they said. I went to the bathroom by myself for the first time in 13 years this afternoon....not really but it seems like it. I knew this day was coming and I shed a tear while writing it but I'm not doing bad. He was getting so deaf and blind he's better off now. It was hard to see those little eyes clouded over though. I carried him around for probably 1/2 hour before I told them he was dead and I was going to the house. Beauregard is in shock, he doesn't know what to do or what has happened. Please give your dogs an ear rub in Dispatch Bichons honor and I will remember the good times.......Dispatch was 13 years, 2 months, and 1 day old and he'd lived with us for 13 years and 18 days of him trying to tell us exactly what we were doing wrong and how we could improve by listening to him. That's why he was Dispatch Bichon.