Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Flapjack - Rescued March 2002 - Left us September 11, 2014

I read something this week that really rang true for me:

"He truly was one of a kind.  We hope that we gave him enough good memories to wipe out any bad ones that came before"


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Flapjack cheated death twice, unfortunately the third time we weren't as fortunate.

In March 2002, when we first met Flapjack at the Animal Defense League he had been pulled out of a kill shelter one day before he was scheduled to be euthanized.  We decided he was the dog for us and adopted him that day.

He rode home in Jerry's lap and became an instant daddy's boy!  The vet had estimated his age to be between 3-4 years old and he had been picked up running loose.  It was obvious a man had abused him before with a belt.  Every time Jerry went to take off his belt, Flapjack would cower at his feet and curl up in a ball terrified.  Thankfully, he was able to see that no one was going to hurt him anymore (except when he stole mommy's quesadilla.  He got a spanking for that!) and turned into a snuggle bug.

The first week we had him he started to act like he wasn't feeling well.  We took him back to the ADL and they felt it was Parvo and he wouldn't make it.  The told us to leave him and the adoption fee would be refunded.  There was no way we were leaving him.  If he was going to die, he was going to die in a warm fluffy bed in our home and not in a kennel.

We took him home with some meds to spoil him for however many days he had left.  A couple of days later, I was telling him to sit and he refused.  I pushed his butt down and he let out a blood curdling "Yelp"!  We looked him over and found a large blister that had formed by one of the incisions from his vasectomy.  It had gone unnoticed because of it's position behind a flap of skin and his leg.  When I pushed him down, I ruptured whatever it was and it started to drain.  A few days later he was a new dog!

We had 12 1/2 wonderful years with him, though it will take a lot of time to assuage the guilt we have of the last 4 days of his life being so miserable and not being with him.  The thought of him dying alone tears us up.