<< Thank you so much to everyone who has followed Aspen's story and prayed for him. >>
As most of you know, Aspen was diagnosed with congenital kidney failure on May 9th. We were told his blood test numbers were grave and that he had a 1 in 10 chance on surviving past a few days/weeks.
We wanted to try everything we could to give Aspen some more time for both him and us. Along with antibiotics we changed his diet a little bit (he became very picky), we gave him at home IVs to keep him hydrated and to flush his kidney's, and we gave him a B12 vitamin shot once a week.
He started to do amazing. He started barking again, going on walks again, he was eating and drinking again, and we even thought he looked like he was gaining weight! We even planned to have him re-tested if he kept doing so well in August.
On July 1st (Aspen's half birthday), he was starting to skip eating again and was sleeping/resting a lot. We noticed an ammonia smell on his as well as a lot of discharge leaking from his eyes.
July 3rd we headed out of town to see my family on the west side for the fourth. My sister-in-law stayed at our house and watched Aspen for us. He did ok until Sunday morning.
As we made the drive back to Spokane, we were given a heads up that Aspen wasn't doing so well. We thought ok we will get home and see him and thought we have at least a couple more days or a week.... we got home at 7 pm and we went and saw Aspen. People said you will just know when its time and Chris and I didn't really understand how you know... well once we saw him we knew. You could hear deep slow breaths the moment you walked out the door and he just sunk into the grass. He was thin and very tired. He didn't look like the puppy he is, instead he looked like a 16 year old dog. We did not let Kaden see him or tell him what was going on, he went to Nana and Papa's house. Chris and I knew he wouldn't make it through the night so we had a vet come to our house and at 9:10 pm Sunday, July 6th, Aspen watched his last sunset with us and fell asleep for the last time in his backyard next to Chris and I.
He was not in pain as far as we know, he would still wag his tail when we were next to him.
It was very peaceful and quick. We are SO thankful for having these last two months with him. He was able to meet Wesley and got to grow up with Kaden for the whole 2.5 years of his life. His life may not have been long but it was still very rich. He had many family walks, lots of baths in the Rector's fountain, many days of running back and forth in the backyard saying "hi" to neighbors that walked by. He was one of a kind.
Aspen
January 1, 2012 - July 6, 2014
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| If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever... |
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| Best friends |
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| Aspen watching the sunset in his backyard |
