Hi there, all,
Not too happy here just now! This morning we called our vets and they came and put Unity to sleep.
Unity was a retired guide dog and served her working life guiding a blind lady in Glasgow. She came to us when she retired in November 2011, her journey from Glasgow to Hampshire took two days with an overnight stay at the GDBA breeding centre at Leamington Spa.
Unity was already suffering from arthritis when she retired and was 'on' medication that had some side effects. Still, she managed to enjoy life with us and play wasn't all one-sided!
More recently, she progressively lost her mobility until the last few days when she was content to spend long periods in her bed. Her appetite declined and, as a result, she wasn't taking down her medication.
We've been keeping tabs on her situation over recent months, wanting to preserve her life as long as it had enough quality yet wanting to avoid keeping her going too long out of reluctance to take that ultimate decision. I fear I'm not describing things here at all well!! On the rational level, I think that we got the timing right. But alongside that, we have our emotions. What was a living member of our family is gone and gone through our conscious decision and that is a heavy load.
Here's another picture of Unity:
I tried to embed the photos rather than putting them on PhotoBucket but I couldn't figure out how to do it!
