Taji is gone

I have to warn you before I start that I might ramble a bit, also that this is not just sad for me, it's awful and horrible, so please go ahead and don't read if you don't want that kind of thing in your life just now. I understand. I don't either. It was bloat. He was at the vet within an hour and a half of showing signs but still it got him.

We lost Taji Saturday morning, suddenly, with little warning and none that it would go that way. Things kicked off Thursday late. We're abroad; we go to France for the summer every year. We had guests, family and good friends, and it was their last night of an unfortunately short visit. We'd had a good day. Everything was fine. We had dinner and after cleaning up we were setting up for a board game. In between setting the plates down for the dog pre-wash cycle and setting up the board, Taji started acting weird-- his face told me he was unhappy. He was holding himself wrong. I felt his belly and it was hard; just as I was asking my husband to get on to finding emergency vets (I don't speak French) he started retching nothing. Into the car, vets contacted on the way. Vet turned up at the practice only a little while after we did. Confirmed he thought it was bloat and sent for a colleague who is better at gastrointestinal stuff, who turned up soon after. It's a small town in a rural area; everyone's either close by or they're Really Far Away. Taji was sedated and X-rayed showing a huge ball of air in his gut but no obvious twists or anything blocking, so, with Taji asleep and us holding him, they put a tube down his throat and cleared the air, and some fluids and undigested food. They X-rayed him again, everything looked better, he was okay; they gave him morphine for pain and we took him home to sleep it off. He slept. I slept right next to him, just inside the door which is as far as he got. He did have one episode of extreme rabbit chasing (not unusual for him) and his paws were very cold all night (unusual) but he otherwise slept like a lump. He got up late morning and moved, wobbly but only as much as you'd expect, to a spot on the terrace where he normally likes to lie and sniff the world and doze. A bit later and he was obviously sore. The morphine had to be wearing off. We'd been instructed to let him have only a little water at a time, that he might be thirsty and just drink like crazy unless we stopped him, so we were careful to let him have only small amounts at about 20 minute intervals (it is hot here) and keep him shaded. He ate nothing. By afternoon his abdomen was swollen and he needed to go back. Vet was packed to the gills but they made time for him. We had to lift him up on to tables and hold him while he was muzzled and shaved and ultrasounded and cannulaed blooded and all the awful things to try to find out what was going on-- ultrasound showed that there was still undigested food in his gut; thing were not moving along. Bloods showed low lymph activity and low T-cells, but not disastrously. Vets wanted to treat him with drugs to get things moving in his gut and keep him in for observation, see how he did. He did ok overnight. He was ok in the early morning. He was not ok by later morning. By 9:00 am he was dead. The vet phoned us to let us know, and wanting to do an autopsy since that should not have happened. We went to see him-- this was so sudden; we left him with every expectation that we'd get a poorly dog back sometime in the day and take it from there-- to make it real. Told the vet yes, please do the autopsy. He phoned back as soon as he had seen what happened. It looks like the initial swelling had caused such trauma to the stomach lining that it had caused about half of the cells there to die. Even had they opened him up then and there when we first brought him in there would have been nothing for it but to put him to sleep, not even wake him from the anaesthetic.

It was SO QUICK. He was fine when we put the plates down. I do think he may have been feeling a bit off before then-- he was lying down in a spot in the garden he doesn't usually go to, far down, but he's an older dog and the grass is cool down there; I thought maybe he just wanted to try a new spot? And he is sometimes a bit off-colour if he eats Ella's food, which is too rich for him, and he did get some of that... He was happy enough to have tuna pasta plates, and then, not even an hour later, wobbly and in pain and this.

The worst is that he died in pain. He died of stomach necrosis. That must have been the most unbelievable pain. Taji doesn't like going to the vet on a good day, doesn't like being handled by people he doesn't know, but we took him there and I left him there and he died. And I know that it couldn't have panned out any other way-- if it had to happen all over again, I don't see what we could do differently without magic knowledge we don't have access to, none of that, none of that helps. Taji, my Taji, who trusted me, died in pain and I wasn't even there.

Taji was a marvellous dog. Not given the care he needed initially, multiply abandoned later, not fitting, as he didn't, anyone's preconceived idea of the dog he should be. Taji was always his own animal. It only took someone to listen to him just a little to understand that. Taji was a person just as much as anyone, human or otherwise, could ever be. All my dogs have been my teachers, but Taji's lessons have been of their own kind. I know he would not have bothered if he didn't know I would listen. I did, I could, and yet, I left him. I left him. He died and I wasn't there. I deserve this scar. Maybe that isn't a condemnation.

Taji Totoro would have been 10 in October.

And then we came home from the vet on Thursday night to find out that some idiot murdered more than 80 people in Nice...

I am declaring Thursday a Bad Day. It can go die in a fire.

So sorry for your loss.

Poor Taji ... and poor you. I am so sorry to read this tragic tale. I understand you beating yourself up but none of this was your fault, you did absolutely nothing wrong, no-one did, it is just one of those awful tragedies that happen sometimes in life.

The little guy is at peace now ... I am sending you big healing howls from Ben and hugs from me xx gnasher xx

I'm so sorry for your loss, you did your best by him and it all went wrong so don't beat yourself up, be kind to yourself x

I am sorry for your loss but you did everything you could and its not your fault

What else could you have done, even the vets say if they bad opened him up, it would have been to late. Please don't blame yourself, you did everything and more. Run free Taji, no more pain

I'm so sorry to hear of your sad news.i know the pain your feeling.lost my boy recently.but don't blame yourself.think of the love you showed him,and the love you received back from him.
Take care.

No matter the circumstances, we all go through beating ourselves up over the loss of someone so very, very precious to us. We shouldn't do because we do all we can with the very best of intentions.

I'm sure that Taji knew you well enough to know that you would have gone to the moon and back to make him well again so please try to ease up on the guilt because there really is no need for it.

Taji's antics will eventually let you raise a smile when thinking of him. In the meantime, know that he is now safe and out of pain xxx

I am truly sorry for your lose.
Best wishes to you and your family at this time.

Very sorry bloat is a horrible thing.
You did all you possibly could.