We lost our little buddy, Thurman yesterday. :( Thurman was in an Upstate SC rescue in March of this year. My wife saw him on their Facebook page after he was found all matted and sick, walking right down the middle of Wade Hampton Blvd. in Greenville, SC. Wade Hampton is a 5 lane Hwy. The rescue (Small but Mighty) took him in and nursed him to much better health, even though he had serious issues. We're Shi Tzu people, so we told them we wanted him. We had experience with dogs with issues like he had, in previous dogs, but we had to wait until early April to get him. The Veterinarian hospital the rescue uses estimated him between 13 to 16 years old. He had an enlarged heart, arthritis, glaucoma in both eyes and a cataract in one. He was the calmest, most peaceful, grateful, and easy to take care of little fellow we've ever had. Didn't fight at all when we had to clean his eyes and put in drops, didn't get upset taking a bath or getting a haircut at the groomers, took his pills easy as could be. Sometimes he would get a burst of energy and act silly and put on a little show to get a treat. He was a great car rider....would just lay down and go to sleep, but you knew when he stood up and snorted, that he needed to stop and go! He was on Lasics for his heart, so he needed a few pee breaks between our house and the beach. He had a serious heart episode about 3 weeks ago and had to spend the night in the hospital, but bounced back pretty quick. Everything was fine until last Thursday morning. He got up, went out and checked his P mail and came back in and took his morning meds, then laid back down to rest from his walk. His area had pee pads and I heard him up stirring around, went and looked and he had 4 accidents on his pads, one with diarrhea. It got worse as the day went on, then eased off that evening. He stopped eating Friday evening, but kept drinking water like always. I had taken him to our vet on Friday morning and his heart and breathing was fine and the vet said to just monitor him. We took him back yesterday and he hadn't eaten 3 bites since Friday, and I was having to give him water with a syringe to keep him hydrated. He was so weak he couldn't hardly walk. His heart murmur was much worse than 3 weeks ago, and his kidney function had greatly decreased. The Vet said that he had a slim chance of recovery to normal if at all, so we decided it was best for him if we let him go to The Rainbow Bridge instead of prolonging his suffering to make ourselves feel better.
This has been long, as these type posts often are. If you read this far, I sincerely appreciate it. Like so many of you, I have had to write goodbye tribute posts about awesome pets before, and no doubt will someday again if I don't go first. So, Rest in Peace Thurman, aka Thurmanator, aka Senator Thurman from the great state of SC (we know Strom's name was spelled different. lol), aka T man. 5 months with you seemed like 5 minutes because you were such a good boy.
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