Echoes.

I admit it.
I am one of those people that treats their dogs like family.
Mainly because she IS family.
Both of them are, but one of them is blood related.
And no, I don’t consider that an insult to myself.

She’s an amazing beagle.  Almost 8 years old – April is her birthday – and she’s intuitive and well-behaved.  Sweet and loving and so freaking human-like that it surprises you.
I worry about her like a child and love her as one.

So when I came home last night and she didn’t come greet me and wouldn’t move from the rug under the dining table, I immediately grabbed my keys and off we went to the vet.

She has arthritis.  Not surprising giving her age and breed but painful to hear. 
Apparently my younger cow-sized beagle jumped on her and exacerbated it yesterday, which left J unable to lift her head, move much, sleep comfortably or even want to eat.
The vet is putting her on high dose steroids for a few weeks, then anti-inflammatories, changing a lot of her lifestyle and basically breaking my heart.

As she says, this will shorten her life but we can keep the quality of her life up if she responds to her meds.
She should feel better by the time I get home, as she’ll have been on the meds almost 24 hours, and I’m hoping so much for this, but in the meantime it’s like she got a ‘crick’ in her neck the size of Texas.

Any time she tried to get comfortable last night she screamed.  Over and over and over until she forgot that every move she made wouldn’t hurt and so she just stopped moving in this half crouch.
I picked her up and put her on the bed and allowed her to get comfortable and that movement seemed to help. 
But the time until then was a NIGHTMARE.

On the plus side, Janie Byrd got to eat an entire chicken breast, tons of extra treats and some regular food.
She won’t every day – she’s at a perfect beagle weight and extra pounds would really hurt her, but I just cried and cried last night and DAMNIT, my baby was getting a treat for being so stoic and well-behaved.

You should have seen her, crouched under the chair in the vets office, shaking so bad that fur was falling off her in clumps.  She wouldn’t come to anyone but me and just leaned on me as though I could fix everything.
I’m trying, baby girl.

If this doesn’t work?  Our only option is back surgery.  An expensive and possible painful long-term procedure that would cut down on the quality of her life.  I don’t know enough about it to make that choice and thank heavens that I don’t have to right now.

For the moment though, I’m just really really sad – the reality is that they don’t live as long as we do.
But I’d give up a ton if she could.
She’s my little support beam.