Losing my Best Friend

I had planned on making my next post about an amazing new wine I’d discovered, and I had planned on posting a few days ago but several events in my life prevented that from happening and I’m sorry to anyone who was expecting a new post sooner.

On June 13th, as I was finishing up my last bit of cleaning before leaving work for the night, my mom told me that my one-year-old puppy, Jax was sick.

She said that he was lethargic, he wouldn’t eat, he would barely move, and he was having bloody diarrhea. It was a few hours after the vet in the small town I grew up in closed, and there were no twenty-four hour vets around, so she had to wait until morning. In the meantime, she got him to drink water and eat a treat.

She told me he was having the same symptoms my old dog, Shasta did when she was a puppy, she passed of old age in September of 2017. My mom said that Shasta was foaming at the mouth too, but that was because she was poisoned, but Jax wasn’t.

He stayed outside all night and in the morning my mom took him to the vet as soon as they opened.

As soon as he looked Jax over, the Vet told her that his gums were ice cold, he was dehydrated and that he was already half-dead, but he took him in for twenty-four hour care.

I called the Vet to check in on him while I sat in my car, waiting to go to work. They told me he was still in the same condition.

My mom and my boyfriend tried to assure me that he would be okay, that it had happened to Shasta and she was in worse shape, that it could be fixed.

The whole day at work I was a sobbing mess. I don’t know how I managed to piece together a meal.

At 2:00 pm, when I took my lunch break, I called again for an update, and I was told he was doing better, his dehydration was under control but there was still blood in his stool so he wasn’t out of the woods yet, but if he made it through this, he’d be around for a long time.

Mom called again just before closing and left a message, and they didn’t get back to her until the next day.

The whole time I prayed for him to get better and I kept thinking about seeing him for the first time.

We got him on June 2, 2018. He was born April 10, 2018. I remember stopping by my mom’s friends house to find all of them sitting and talking on the patio, and my mom cradling a little black lab.

He was a mix of a Black Lab and an Australian Shepherd, we later found out, and when he got older, it was obvious. He had the body and coloring of a Black Lab and the shortness of an Australian Shepherd.

After two days of having him, I taught him how to sit. A couple more and he could lay down, and after a few weeks he knew how to jump up and fetch. It took a month for us to potty train him.

He imprinted on me because I was around a lot more because I only had a part time job. He was originally my mom’s dog, but he became mine.

My boyfriend and I lived two and a half hours away from each other, which meant I would stay with him for a few days at a time and it was hard leaving Jax for that long.

It was much worse when I moved out. I would visit as often as I could and every time he wouldn’t stop jumping up and down and wagging his whole body when he saw me.

I wanted to skip work so I could go and see him, but the Vet said that it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to get him excited and then leave.

I thought he would be okay, because that’s what everybody kept telling me. I was going to go up on Tuesday and see him.

On Saturday, June 15th, around 7:15 pm, he fell asleep and the technicians couldn’t wake him up.

As soon as I got out of the shower at 7:30, I had a missed call from my mom and a text that said “he didn’t make it”.

The shock didn’t last very long, soon I was sobbing into the pillows on our bed. I texted my boyfriend and begged him to get off work early because I couldn’t handle being in the bedroom alone.

I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t want to. Deep down I still think it was all a mistake and he will be awake and ready for me to take him home, but I know its not true.

I couldn’t stay at work on Sunday because I was a mess and I couldn’t even try to cook, today I called in because I didn’t want to try.

I feel like I lost a child, and a best friend.

Tomorrow, my boyfriend and I will drive up to the vet and pick him up, and bury him in my mom’s backyard under the lilac bushes he used to chew on.

Rest in peace my sweet baby boy, I’ll love you until the day I die. I hope you can play fetch in heaven. I’ll miss you so much, Jax.