A goodbye to our Doris 1


Whilst I wasn’t blogging, our beautiful Doris Dog died. We didn’t know it was coming. We had just adopted Rainie Roo in December, then Doris took a turn for the worst in January. 

Being strays, we never really knew how old Freya or Doris were. It’s all a bit of guess work with abandoned animals. Freya was about a year old when adopted and this is supported by the fact she grew a tiny bit taller after we got her. The same goes for Rainie who we adopted just before Christmas.  But our Doris, we thought she was about 7 years old, but when she became unwell the vet that was assigned as Doris’ main vet said she was actually more likely 11 years old. Salukis have a 12 year life expectancy. We knew she wasn’t going to suddenly be cured.

What I didn’t expect, and wasn’t ready for was her to try to run away to die, like a pet cat often would. Extremely sick, and a few afternoons in a row she bounced over a 7 ft fence like it was nothing. She went to the shadows of the trees on the fields each time but we took her back home. Then one night she had a sort of fit or stroke. I am certain she stopped breathing a few times but somehow she held on until morning.

I was devasted. All night of been holding her – Except for a couple of hours at A&E with Jen due to his heart problem. I had been almost praying she would die at home, in my arms, with her Daughter Freya and her new buddy Rainie by her side. 

As it turned out, it was a family outing to the vets. They saw Doris and said “she looks fine, are you sure about this?” With a slightly baffled look on his face. Doris was faking it, she looked awful at home, awful in the car and now inside the vets she was as bouncy as a puppy. I showed our vet a few video clips from the night before and the morning. He just said “Oh Doris, you poor thing” and she laid herself down on the blanket as if to say I quit

Jen had been the only pet or person she had wanted all night. If he moved, she cried. He slept on the sofa with her most of the night, almost every night since we adopted her she would sleep on Jen’s bed, sometimes she’d even get under the duvet with him. He was her favourite, even above her own daughter.  At the end Jen could no longer look – when that injection was given all of us cried, but Jen and Freya couldn’t even look. 

The vets were crying too, they’d tried so hard the previous couple of months to fix her. They loved her there, it wasn’t just about the money to them. 
In memory of my girl. X 

You were loved. 


Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

One thought on “A goodbye to our Doris