RubyTribute

On December 2, 2006, I made a decision that every pet owner dreads. I let my little Ruby girl go. In November of 2005, she was diagnosed with mammary cancer. The tumor was removed at the time. The vets couldn't really give a definitive prognosis because mammary cancer differs from dog to dog. Ruby didn't have any external reoccurrences of tumors until the weekend of November 25-26, 2006. She was taken in during the week and a much more serious problem was found. Cancer had attacked her liver. The internal tumors had grown so large that it was taking up a large portion of her adominal cavity and limiting the space for her stomach and intestines. An ultrasound revealed lymph node involvement and fluid in her abdominal cavity as well. By the following weekend, the liver tumors had grown even larger. She was having difficulty getting up or walking and she would scream in pain when you touched the area near the external tumor. She could only eat little bits of food at a time and often would refuse food. You would have to know that Ruby lived for food to know how odd it was for her to refuse to eat. So, instead of letting her slowly starve to death or risk having her die from internal bleeding, I made the decision to let her go before she suffered any more.

I had seen more than enough suffering in the past couple of years and I promised my kids that I would not put them through what Pico went through. Good-bye my little girl. Go play with your son Dutch, granddaughter Bea and my little Pico doggy.