Goodbye Penny

I’m writing this now because I won’t be able to do it later, I’ll be too sad.

For the last week to ten days, Penny has been falling over a lot, whether indoors or even in the middle of the road. She’s always had bad legs, but it spread to her front ones and has been dragging her feet with every step, leaving a trail of blood all the way home from the park. She doesn’t seem to be in any pain, but on Tuesday she fell over in a pile of her own poo (not for the first time) and looked up at me to say, “I don’t want to do this anymore”.

Today we took her to the vets. OH thought she could be fixed as it was only her legs and she was on medicine for them. However, we were told it was neurological and there’s nothing more that can be done for her.

She has tablets until Tuesday to help blood flow to the brain, and some stronger anti-inflammatories. But unfortunately we know this will be the last few days we have with her, she is going to be put to sleep on Wednesday so we need to make this weekend extra special for her. We will really miss her, but the vet and Penny have made the decision for us, so it is not so tough and we know now that we are doing the right thing. She will live on in memory through PennyDog and our favourite photographs, and of course she was Best Veteran 2010, so this “useless” runner won something in the end.

I am very honoured that I could give Penny her twilight years. We got her just before her 10th birthday a nervous wreck of a stray, frightened of men, socks, footballs, cats and pretty much everything else. She has turned into a self-confident, if not slightly contrary old lady, with the occasional kleptomania streak and adamant that when at OH’s mum’s house she will get dog meat otherwise she is not eating it thank you very much. She is a campaigner against bathing dogs, and surprisingly tasty when she has come in from the rain (well, Fletcher thinks she is!). She takes no crap from puppies and communicates by moistening her palate. She either lays on her back with a single paw in the air or on her front like an aquatic dinosaur fossil. She can fall down a flight of stairs and come off unscathed, and has only barked twice in all the time we have had her.

So this is in memory of the inspiration behind PennyDog, also known as Penny, Pencilface, Penelope, The Penz, Mrs P, Pickle, Honeypickle, Stumblina, Peas, Penelope Pankhurst, Pixie, Pix, Chief… We will all miss her so much.

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