Our story about Josie the Golden Retriever and our progress through cancer.
The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go. -Sir Winston Churchill
In between the calls from Doctors and my trips to the Vet, my Dad got a call from Porterhouse’s mom. ”It’s time.”
Porterhouse is a bulldog friend of mine…well, more of a family friend. On his doggy kindergarten report card he got the “does not play well with others” mark. Porterhouse loves his 2 legged siblings and is a adored by his parents. With a big under bite and crooked smile he fit in well living a couple blocks from the Marine Barracks. One of the cool things about being a bulldog is that you always get a great name, Porterhouse, Hercules, Tank, Dozer, or Lassie (love the irony).
Porterhouse had cancer.
Not fair! Golden’s are loved by everybody, we are smart, easy to train, we were bred to hunt with Kings and Nobility…but, we get cancer. Bulldogs have bad skin, they are stubborn, they snore, heart disease, kidney disease, they can barely breed without the help of a doctor and I’ve never met a Bulldog that didn’t have bad gas. It is not fair that they get cancer.
Porterhouse had cancer and it was his time.
Porterhouse’s Mom asked my Dad, “what options do we have? We love our vet but don’t want the clinical setting.”
It turns out there is a whole industry for this.
My Dad called around to a few places and found that most mobile Vets offer some type of in-home service for end of life decisions outside the clinical setting of a vet office. They’ll come to your home and help make it as peaceful and non-stressful as possible. Dr. Deutsch of Compassionate Care Veterinary Services came highly recommended to us by my Dad’s friend Dr. Katy Nelson. Turns out you can make a living being the Dr Kevorkian of dogs, who knew. She also recommended Dr. Villar of Home Veterinary Care, who has a mobile practice and does complete veterinarian care, not just end of life. Also, one of my running buddies, Kody, his mom, Dr Gerth has a mobile Vet service, Critterfixer’s, and lists that as one of her services for clients.
Just down the street from my Dad’s store is Sunset Pet Services. They offer individual pet cremation services as well as urns. Also recommended to us was Valley Pet Cemetery and Crematory, in Maryland. They both offer pickup and cremation services.
This led us to the, Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement. A website with a number of links to information to help get through the loss of your pet.
A whole industry I hardly knew existed.
For Porterhouse it was time. His parent’s looked into his eyes and they knew. On March 19, Porterhouse was held by his mom as he crossed the rainbow bridge, he is sorely missed by his family.