Dear Dr. Smith;
Thanks for responding to my wife Becky in November. The information you provided was very helpful, and I hope you understand our not getting back to you to thank you: we’ve been in denial since then as Zeke has given us a few more months of companionship, enjoying himself for the most part.
And now it looks like it’s time. Despite a still-robust appetite he’s losing weight. Our regular vets at Four Corners in Concord have done everything they can, and Dr. Kubicka there told me yesterday that he thinks it’s time. Zeke is a shepherd-mix mutt who’s made it to age 16, and heroically lived through three years of arthritis in the hips, and though he is in surprisingly good overall health in most ways he is just fading, losing muscle mass and getting weaker. Dr. Kubicka mentioned the possibility that he may fall and break a bone, and obviously we want to avoid that if at all possible.
He suggests this week, but I have to think about my wife’s well-being as well. Zeke is not in serious discomfort, and I am at home 24/7 taking care of him, and I’d like to see if we can get him through to the weekend of February 16: Becky has a four-day weekend, and I think the time together will help us deal with the loss to the extent that we can.
So what I would like to ask is whether you have time available for us here in Pinole on Friday, February 16 to put our dog down. I will be monitoring him closely in the interim, and it may be that we will decide to push things up depending on whether he begins to deteriorate more quickly. I understand that an urgent call involves some inconvenience to you and thus further cost, and we will try to give as much advance notice as possible if we need to change his date.
We have read the material you provided. We will be interring Zeke in our garden. He weighed 38 pounds yesterday: I hope he won’t have lost too much by the 16th, but it is likely.
I don’t know whether you make a habit of getting to know about the animals you work with — I can see good reasons why you would and equally good reasons why you would not — but if you care to, I have written extensively about Zeke on my website at http://www.faultline.org.
I can be reached at home at [phone number] if you have any questions or concerns.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Categories:
Zeke
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