21/05/2025
I wasn’t sure if I should share this here, being my ‘professional’ page, but I know people want to know what happened to my sweet girl - and I know I am surrounded by dog lovers here. Kyah was so happy, healthy and spritely one minute, and gone the next. I’d rather explain it online because I can’t bring myself to have the conversation face-to-face; it’ll break me.
Kyah was completely her normal self Monday afternoon before I left to teach training classes. Whilst I was out, she played fetch with Arrow, chasing him around as always. She came inside and laid by the heater, her usual routine when it is on. I am so glad we put it on a few days ago.
The first sign something was wrong came when Eamonn made their dinners. She was hesitant to eat, but eventually did. I got home a little while after, and had hot chips. She rejected my offering of a hot chip, which really worried me. That’s when Eamonn mentioned she’d been funny with dinner. I noticed her ears were flat, her tail was down and she seemed lethargic. Her gums were slightly pale. She had essentially crashed in less than two hours. Alarm bells rang as she had a regurgitation episode a few days prior with her dinner, and aspiration pneumonia is a looming threat after her laryngeal tie-back surgery, so I knew I needed to take her to emergency. I had to carry her to and from the car.
At Pawprints in Blackwood, they did an ECG and found her heartbeat was racing at around 300bpm. They did an ultrasound and were very, very thorough, looking at every inch of her insides. A shadow between her liver and spleen that could be suspicious was noted. Then they scanned her heart. They found the sac around her heart was completely full of fluid, so her poor heart was battling against this to try and beat effective. They don’t know why; their best guess was that a malignant tumour had burst. It happened so, so fast. We could take her home and wait out until morning to get her into a specialist, but she would go into cardiac arrest at some point, whether that be sooner or later. The chances of seeing a specialist before her heart gave out was very low. After talking it out with the vet, I made the gut wrenching decision to not take that risk. Whilst her body was working so hard to keep her alive and she was very tired, she currently wasn’t in pain. I didn’t want her last moment to be in the agony and terror of a heart attack.
Eamonn came, he brought along a chocolate bar and a chicken schnitzel sandwich laiden with mayonnaise. I always wanted for her to eat all the junk food in the world before she went. I keep thinking of things I wish I’d asked him to bring. She loved the schnitzel and some of the buttery, mayonnaise-covered bread. The chocolate bar got a few taste tests but was ultimately rejected. We also went for a gentle wander up the street so she could p*e and crap on everything, in true Kyah style. She wanted to keep walking and sniffing forever, and God I wish I could’ve let her. Telling her she wasn’t allowed to go into OTR next door felt like I was denying her one last moment of joy. It was gut wrenching.
Kyah was blessed to have two male staff that night; she always adored men. Every time she spotted them, even from across the clinic, she would use all her strength to wag her tail. I think they fell in love with her a little bit, too.
Her passing was peaceful, surrounded by so much love. The vet staff were incredible, particularly Dr Tobi Threadgold, who was so thorough, gentle, kind, read the room beautifully, and really went out of his way to make the whole experience as minimally agonising as possible. He helped me feel confident in my decision, and I knew I could trust his judgement.
I am so devastated. I still thought we had years left. I’m sure she did, too. I regret so many things we didn’t do because I thought we still had time. I always tried my best to play tug and wrestle even when I was so exhausted and ready for bed, but I still wish I had done it more. It made her so happy, my spicy girl. I just hope she knew how deeply loved she was, and that she didn’t feel like she had missed out on much. I wish we had been given more time, even just a few days, to do some of her favourite things before she left. Just the chance to lay in the sun, belly up, for one last day would’ve been a blessing. But life is far too cruel for that.
I’m not religious, I’m not spiritual, once somebody goes, they are gone as far as I am concerned. But if there’s any way in the world that there’s somewhere we go afterwards, I sure hope there are plenty of rats to chase, tug toys to hang off of, and men to wag her tail and playbow at. Hopefully there’s a nice heater with a comfy bed that she will ultimately reject and choose to lay on the hard floor next to instead. And of course, all the snacks in the world.
We love you forever, my sassy queen. Thanks for everything ❤️
