Electra

As Electra disclosed in her earlier Last Walks post, we’ve known for some time that she has cancer. The tumours in her throat had receded recently, and we were starting to hope that she would get better. However, what started as a limp a week ago progressed quickly to an inability to use her real left leg. A visit to the vet yesterday revealed an aggressive and painful bone cancer. Heike made the difficult decision on the spot to put her out of her misery.

Below I’ve pasted some pictures of Electra which we’ve taken over the last few years.

Last Walks

A guest post from Electra, along the lines of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture...

Greetings to all of you humans out there on the interwebs.  My can-opening, Frisbee-throwing walk companions have finally given me permission to speak directly to you, my loving fan base.

Unfortunately the news I have is not good. Although the rumours of my demise are exaggerated, they are not greatly so. Today I visited the premises of the Tierklinik Hofheim, and inspected their fine equipment for radiation therapy. It all looks very high-tech and impressive, but unfortunately the vet's opinion there is that the melanoma in my throat is not suitable for treatment, and that it's more sensible to make my remaining time as comfortable as possible.

The prognosis is for my demise in the next 4 to 6 weeks. My human companions are understandably upset, but I think they also understand that the important thing is to look after my every whim in the time I have left. I fully intend to sleep in the bed, eat steak and go for forest walks as often as I like within the timespan left to me, and they'd better see to it that my wishes are fulfilled. The upcoming holiday in Corsica will be a good start.

So, dear readers, please feel free to comment with suggestions on how the humans can pamper me even more than usual in the time remaining. You know I'm worth it.

Préfailles

Last week saw the Cassidy-Schwab household transplanted to the Loire-Atlantique town of Préfailles. Here we met up with assorted Cassidys, Nolans and Conneelys for a very pleasant holiday.

I can definitely recommend the accommodation if you're looking for a 9-bedroom self-catering place to house 12 adults, 5 children and two  dogs.

The photos are to be found here. I like this one of Rosalie particularly:

Liam of course could not leave the country without his Laufrad. Here he is posing in front of his favourite cousin Alannah.

and my dear wife was also on hand to do some insane smiling :-)

For those who claim that Germans are immune to humour, my brother-in-law proved otherwise by changing the locks on our house while we were away. The humorous part was of course to not tell us, so on our return at 3am I had a chance to impress my family by breaking in. What fun and games.

Othello

Regular readers of this blog will know that we share our humble abode with two Deutsch Drahthaar dogs, Elektra and Othello. Today I'd like to talk a bit about Othello.

Othello's original name was Bandit, and he spent his first 11 years on a farm in Alsace. Here he was kept on a chain outside through the winter, and generally badly treated, so much so that the woman who runs the local animal refuge climbed over the fence with bolt cutters and liberated him in a midnight raid.

Once in the animal refuge, Othello did not recover well from his mistreatment. His fur was frozen off, and he was underweight, so that no-one was interested in taking him on. Through the organisation that had helped us find Electra, we heard of his plight and agreed to take him on for a few weeks. The hope was that he would then look more presentable and be more easily rehoused. He wormed his ways into our hearts, and has created havoc in our lives since September 2002. Despite the initial prognosis of a six month life expectancy, and occasional health scares in the last few years, Othello has always tried to attain the goal set for him by Heike: see Liam into his first day at school.

On Saturday, I came down to the kitchen to find Othello on the floor unable to get up. After 48 hours of trying to pep him up, we were forced today to bring him to the vet and have him euthanised. We miss him. Some pictures of Othello are shown below.