Aischa
Aischa, our great, couragious little Yorkshire terrier left us on February 27.
I went to France for only a week and when I left on the Wednesday she still looked okay. However, thinking back her deterioration started already on the way from Ireland to Scotland and probably even before that. When we spent the night in a B&B before taking the ferry the next morning in Belfast, she did not want to eat. I thought this was because I only gave her the biscuits and not the home cooked food, which she normally had. She also started drinking more than she used to do.
As soon as we arrived in Scotland we took her to the vet because she had been coughing for quite a while. She got antibiotics and cortisone and stopped coughing very quickly. She still did not eat as she normally did but we put this down to the medication.
Coming back from our morning walk and while we had our breakfast we used to give her a few of her biscuits which she normally ate very quickly but did not want to have the two days before I left. However, she wanted her bits of banana, which she always got from Alan.
While I was in France, Alan told me that she was getting very weak and he would take her to see the vet. The next time I talked to him he told me that they had found out that she had kidney failure und had put her on a drip. When he picked her up on the Saturday she was much better but on the Sunday she was deteriorating again.
When I got back from Edinburgh airport on Wednesday late afternoon I was picked up from the bus stop by Sheila, our next-door neighbor. She told me that Aischa had become so weak that day that Alan had taken her to the vet to put her to sleep. There they told him that they would put her on a drip again so that I could say goodbye.
As the vet surgery is more or less next door to the bus stop I went there immediately. The surgery was already closed for the day but they let me in to see Aischa. As soon as she saw me, her front paw came up so that I could tickle her tommy and when I picked her up she clung on to me.
Alan had arranged to pick her up the next morning and talking to the vet he advised me to enjoy the next day with her and have her put to sleep late afternoon.
When we picked her up she was not too bad. Coming home and putting her on the grass for a wee, she started sniffing about and was interested in what was going on around her. Once inside and put into her bed, she jumped straight out again and went to the kitchen to have a drink and Alan gave her some food, which she all ate. She even started following me when I went into another room.
We took her into the garden later on for another wee, but she did not want to sniff around any longer. We carried her through the garden, showing her all her favourite places for a last time. After that she was fading very quickly and at 3 PM, when the vet came she was very weak. Then it all went very quickly and I suppose we did the best for her but it was very difficult to let her go.
While I was in France, Alan had already made her little coffin and we buried her on Friday, in the rose garden in a beautiful sunny, privat little corner. She wore her little Crinch vest, which we bought for her in November. Sheila was with us and afterwards she invited us to her place for a celebration of Aischa’s life.
For non-pet owners all this may sound a bit over the top but she had been a part of our life for nearly 10 years and it was good to talk about Aischa and Krümmel, what they did, liked, their funny traits, etc. Afterwards we all felt better even though it still hurts thinking about her. Also, the flat feels very empty and I still keep looking down to see if Aischa is in front of my feet, especially in the kitchen where she was always hoovering the floor.