Good bye Sabar we all miss you.

 

Sabar –1998- 2011

I am sorry if I seem to ramble and please don’t feel obliged to read this but I have to write how I feel about my companion.

This post is one of the hardest I will ever write.We had to say goodbye to one of our family members last Thursday evening for the last time in this lifetime of ours.

We got Sabar by default really- we had lost our previous dog “Casey” a Rottweiler cross in January 1999- we found her collapsed in our back yard and rushed her to an emergency centre but unfortunately whatever was wrong with her couldn’t be helped and we said a sad goodbye. We weren’t ready to get another dog for the time being and so we just went on- it was hard for our youngest because she was his guardian angel and protector he was 8 at the time.

A girlfriend of a friend was studying veterinary science at a place in Werribee in Victoria and new we all missed our Casey so when she heard they were going to be putting some puppies to sleep she thought she would try and find them homes-Apparently Sabars’ mother had been inseminated and they had wanted female puppies but out of the litter of about thirteen they only got three or four females- the rest were males and only four of them survived out of a litter, they kept the “dogs” and trained vets in vaccinations and goodness knows what on them they then decided they didn’t need them any more and so this is where the girlfriend stepped in-she told us it was a rottweiler puppy but when we saw him we new it was a mixed breed of some sort- but we also fell in love with him and couldn’t let him get put down- so home he came- when we first saw him he was six months old and looked a bit like a dachshund but with a roly poly dog skin- he was so scared and just wanted to be loved- which we did.- we took him in and even though he didn’t like human contact we all held him to get him used to being touched without the pain, my daughter and I spent most of the day for the first few weeks doing this and eventually we got him used to us he would shy away from most males he came in contact with for several years but eventually most people were ok.  Our daughter got seriously ill with meningococcal in the July of that year and he played a big part of her therapy and rehab - we were allowed to take him to the rehab clinic for visits and when she was allowed home for weekends he stuck by her side most of the time. I am human so I can sit on the furniture.

From then things went reasonably smooth except for arthritis when he was about three onward which we effectively treated with glucosamine and about four or five years ago when he had to have his spleen removed because of a tumour- cost us thousands but we felt he was worth the expense for what he had given us.

Then because I  have been working full time for the past three weeks and a week ago when I came home I noticed he hadn’t eaten his breakfast- this was totally out of character for him- he may look slim in the photos but man could he eat –at first I thought he may have been protesting because I was not at home with him but then somehow I just knew something was wrong.I took him to the vet last Saturday and they took some blood and the results were inconclusive so they recommended an ultra sound which we had done on Wednesday- this also didn’t show positive results of any sort but that there was something either on his pancreas or around his intestines and liver- the options- put him through surgery with the high likely hood of it being a tumour and having to euthanize him or let him die in pain in a month or two because they thought with his history and the other results that was about as long as he had- I chose to bring him home so everyone that wanted to could say goodbye and then let him rest peacefully- both the vets we dealt with were nothing but compassionate and they dosed him up with pain killers and sent him home for his last good byes. My daughter and I were with him when he went- very quickly and very peacefully and he is now buried near our other dog out on a friends farm in their orchard.                              When we first got him he ate nearly everything he could get his teeth into but over the years he only ate what he was told to eat- except for when the grandkids were around and then anything they dropped or put on the floor was fair game- He NEVER took from them unless he was told he could “have it” and he was very gentle and patient with them all- we have 7 grandchildren four years and under and they have all been around him since they were born –even though he was getting older then - admittedly we did watch carefully for any sign he may snap- but he never did, if he had enough of them he just got up and went somewhere else- he was so patient he put up with babies and toddlers pulling at him and just about squashing him trying to get a cuddle but he just took it all. He thought he was human and would back onto a chair or the couch with his hind legs up on the seat and his front legs supporting him on the floor – or he thought he was a lap dog because we used to cuddle him when he was little as he grew he continued to think that but he was very bony.

He also made a companion to our cat and they used to play chase around our back yard- taking in turns who would be the chaser- our cat “Rambo” is totally lost at the moment.

Here are a few picture of Sabar in varying degrees- some have dates but most don’t

He thought he would pay the cat back – this is an old picnic basket I got for the cat to sleep in in my craft room but Sabar decided he would take possession of it no matter how uncomfortable it was.  

   

making themselvess comfortable on our bed while I stepped out for a short time.

enjoying a brief burst of sunshine

     This is Rambo getting ready to take off after Sabar- who happened to run behind me for protection- it was nothing for the cat to bite the dog without any retaliation and Rambo new he could get away with it if I was not on the scene- then he would get growled at.

This has been an effort to write and I thank any of you if you have read it. We will get another dog one day- when one chooses to take us as it’s family or within the next few years- which ever comes first.

Thanks to Ida –http://faithartistry.blogspot.com/ who suffered a similar loss this past week and has been a great help in coming to terms with it all.

Regards

Thanks for visiting

Kathy S