{Dutchess}

DUTCHESS DESCHEPPER

BORN: 04-01-1996

DIED: 02-08-2008

This is copied from an email I sent out to family and friends the other day so if you got it, don't bother reading... unless you really want to.

*****

I've been thinking a lot about my Mom the last few days hoping she will be there to meet "Precious" when she dies. (That's what my Mom called Dutchess) Dutchess had been getting worse and worse with the cancer and we thought we would have one last weekend with her and have her put down the first part of next week. Well, this morning (Friday) she tried to come up the stairs and fell and couldn't get up. Thomas was crying and yelling for me to come help her. I had to carry her outside and I helped her stand up. She took a few steps. I went and got her pills with cheese and lunchmeat and she didn't even come to the door for it. (Not at all like the food-stalker dog we knew). She ate it when I took it to her but when I tried to get her to come back into the house she wouldn't (or couldn't) so I picked her up and carried her in. I wanted the boyz to have a little 'Dutchess time' before school, just in case we had to "take" her before they got home. She made it until this afternoon and all the boyz could say goodbye to her. Then we went to the vet. We let anyone come who wanted to. It was me, David, Thomas, Isaac & Eli. Adam didn't want to come, Jake was doing homework, Sam left on a snow campout and Aaron had to go pick up Megan from a friend's. (side note: Aaron just got here Wednesday and I didn't think he was coming for a couple more days, I'm glad he was here to see Dutchess. He loved that dog. He would fully pick her up and hold her like a baby, even when she weighed 50 pounds. He would wrestle with her and get her all riled up, playing games & running and jumping around. She used to love it! She didn't do that anymore. She even stopped barking and she WAS a COMPULSIVE barker! Anyway, he was able to pat and love her and today after he held her for the last time & said goodbye, he was a little teary.)

The vet told me last Monday when I took her in to have a couple of things checked , that when we felt it was time to put her to sleep, we could be there with her if we wanted. So, we were. It was pretty neat and pretty sad. They gave her a tranquilizer and let that take effect for about 5 minutes. We pat her and kissed her head & told her we love her. We thanked her for taking care of us & told her we'd see her again. That Grammy Joyce was waiting for her and would take care of her. You could tell she was ready. I've seen that look in her eyes for weeks. Then they came in and shaved her skinny leg (she'd lost a ton of weight) and injected Phenobarbital into her vein and it was almost instant. She was gone. Peacefully.

We spent a little more time with her and then left. When we closed the door to the exam room Eli was yelling at the door, like he knew we were leaving part of our family behind. He didn't like that so much. He's going to be looking for her for days as we all will, I'm sure.

Thomas has taken it the worst. She was HIS dog. He was so very sad this morning. He sobbed this afternoon & was the last one to pat her and say goodbye. I don't know if it was my best move as a parent to let him witness he dog being euthanized? Anyway, I have talked to him about this all along. He was with me when we took her to the vet Christmas eve when we found out she had cancer and was going to die in 3-6 weeks. (that Dr. was pretty accurate -6 weeks, 4 days) We've talked about exactly what they do to put a dog to sleep and the options for after. At one point he was hoping we'd pay the extra money to have a private cremation and keep her ashes but after we discussed where he would want them kept and what would happen to them with all the flying things through our house and who would have to clean it up, he agreed that the "public cremation" was the way to go. I told him I would work on getting a special picture of her to put in the house and if he wanted one for his bedroom, I'd give him one, too.

*****

NEW: The last two days, Eli has been looking in the backyard for Dutchess & this morning "Duhdis" was the first thing he said when we came downstairs. He knew taking care of her was part of our morning routine. I keep expecting to see her around. What I AM seeing is lots of food that gets dropped. I guess I never knew how much there was because she was a little "Roomba". Now I just may have to get a real one! Anyway, look for more tributes to Dutchess.

We love you, Dutchess!

Bye, bye!