I got home from work yesterday to find Bandit lying on the ground in the laundry room.
I could tell that something was wrong when I walked in the door and I heard him cry out. normally shelties are dogs that bark, but the whole time Bandit was with us, he never barked once.
Bandit was taking pain medication for arthritis, so it was not uncommon for him to have a hard time standing up (his back legs were especially weak sometimes). When I found him it looked like his back legs had given out on him.
I wasn't sure what to do. I tried to help him stand up, but his legs were too weak. I wrapped him in a towel and drove in the van to the nearest vet that I knew of, but they were closed. the 24 hour emergency clinic was about 10 miles from there and because my band was playing a show about an hour away, I wanted to wait for Lara to get home before we decided what to do.
zech picked me up for the show, and Lara and I decided that she would take Bandit to the clinic. it was difficult because I didn't want her to have to go alone, but because of the show, and my lack of adequate transportation I was stuck.
after carrying Bandit out to the car and getting him comfortable I told Lara to call me when she knew what was up.
At about 9 PM, I was just getting to the club and Lara called for the update. Because of Bandit's age, it was kind of hard for the emergency clinic vets to diagnose what the exact problem was. they advised that he may have had a mild stroke, or it could have been just his arthritis flaring up. they gave him some pain medicine and offered to keep him over night.
Lara and I decided to go ahead and have her bring him home because we wanted him to be with us. we would take him to the vet in the morning.
I called Lara after the show (about 1:30 am) after receiving a frantic message to call. Bandit was home, but was now crying and barking nonstop. Lara didn't know what to do. I told her that I would be home in about an hour and we could figure out what we wanted to do.
When I came in Lara was on the couch asleep and Bandit was still crying out. We talked and I told her that because I had to get up for work at 8, we should try to get some sleep and take him to the vet in the morning. Lara was too upset to sleep, so I went to bed alone. It was almost 4 am.
I woke up at 7 and noticed a text message on my phone from Lara that she had taken him back to the clinic.
I found her sitting on the back porch and she told me that he was gone.
There had been nothing they could do for him. I am still not clear exactly what the final issue was, but apparently he had been in a lot of pain. Lara told me that she had finally agreed to let the vets put Bandit down.
I told her that it was the right thing and that we had known he didn't have a long time. All we had wanted for Bandit was a nice place for him to settle down for the last part of his life. Unfortunately it was too short for us.
I held her for a few minutes and finally told her I had to go to work and that I would see her at noon when I got home. She told me I could take her car and that she was going to try to sleep.
