Corgie passed away

The cutest dog in the Dino household, Corgie, has passed away sometime at dawn of Oct 7, 2011.

Dino dad and i almost got heart arrest to discover her motionless lying by the wall of the patio table, her tongue black and dropped out of her gaped mouth; her eyes were not even closed.

The night before she had been spotted with palpable enlarged stomach. She wouldn't eat her dinner - the first time. We knew something was very wrong. We even decided to rush her to the vet early next morning for scan. But she didn't last the night.

Vet suggested she died of GDV (Gastric dilatation-volvulus), also known as 'twisted stomach'. We've always prided ourselves the better pet owners who are quite knowledgable in dog-cat medical and behavior studies. But when it came to Corgie's case, we were acting like idiots, not having a clue of the sight of Corgie's condition in the last few hours before she died.

Another possibility the vet had suggested was heart attack. Last moment, i'd decided to call off the post-mortem, thinking whatever that had took her life must be either if these two possibilities.

Corgie has never had any health problem since the first year she came to our house through a friend who had caught her wandering in the street heedlessly. She was estimated to be no more than 1 year old when she entered our life: white, short, fluffy and her signature round brown patch on her white back. we even nicknamed her 'Japanese piggy'. Our neighbor also thought her breed is 'pig-dog' (猪仔狗). Hilarious, but adorable.

The first six months after her arrival, our house turned into a huge green cage, literally. She was peak on heat, trying everything to climb out through every little inch of chance she spotted. She would even pull out the nail on the wall using her nose and mouth so the plastic fence - we've erected temporary after discovering her outside the house when we got home from work one day - be wide enough for her to slip out. Through out her heat, there were at least 3 incidents, through ways we were still baffled until today how she'd did it, she was found outside wandering, so the security guard had informed us. Smart, wasn't she?

She was very intelligent. Perhaps the previous owner had had trained her - a pure breed corgi couldn't have been born stray - she responded to training very well. As mentioned in her breed guide, she had attentive eyes to owners - the one-owner type. So caring for you is most easy, though we had a little challenge in changing her one-dog-alpha mentally when she met our other older dogs Pepsi and Beagle, that are double her size. Plus, she loved picking at her food, throwing out foods which were less favorable and making her eating place messy with. And she loved attacking the cats' food bowl when we turned our backs.

So, her face was always a picture of sunny day, that sweetest smiling face when panting (she always panted), big bat years fronting and super super fast feet during jogging time.

6 years on, all bad habits had been successful changed and she'd recognized her fourth place in Dino's hierarchy of dominance, everything went well except her hyperactive trait. Too active, in fact. Every action was always an excitement; fast and snappy and lightning speed. Even waking from her sleep was like a spring. Truly justified her ancestral lineage of a hunting breed. We told ourselves that we must be prepared one day she might collapse with an heart attack when she gets older.

This year her left hind leg started limping occasionally. We thought a few things: hip dysplasia, prolapse disc (prone to long bodies dog) and long nail growth that made jogging uncomfortable. Only recent month she slowed a lot during jog time, even totally stopped to rest mid way. Concerned, we decided to bring her to vet for a whole full body checkup. Plus to clean her teeth.

One thing about Corgi, respite an A+ doggie, was her reluctance to let a fourth person - after me, Dino dad and my older sister - approach. So, vet always has an issue coming near her. Vaccination day was always quite a drama. On the morning of Oct 7, we took her to her vet. As usual, she struggled like hell in Dino dad's arm. Because this time the doc needed to test her knee cap, Corgie was muzzled and clamped down. Now thinking back, she might have struggled too assertively (almost 5 minutes). After coming home, she was seen fine the whole afternoon. Only started to shun food and breathing hard and drink quite often during night time.

We could see she wasn't comfortable that night - and stupid us didn't come across it to be the onset of heart attack of GDV. We even ruled in kidney failure - so Dino dad stayed up with her on the couch till 1am, all the time resolute to bring her to vet first thing the next morning.

Corgie didn't last the night. While slept, she breathed her last breath downstairs. She might have whined, but i think it was better we didn't see her go. Because it would be devastating for us, being helpless in the middle of night in a country where animal emergency care was not an option; in a Muslim country where dogs have no place.

Corgie weighted only 8kg when we sent her off for cremation. She used to weigh 10kg; she was only 6kg when we first took her in - the same weigh as our biggest tuxedo cat, Dharma. Today, her urn has been buried under the tree across our house, where she'd liked to wee wee whenever we let her out supervised.

Her sudden death devastated us momentarily. But we were surprised we could recoup fast - though each memory and photo of her brings tear to our eyes. We are thinking maybe we haven't pulled the plug, liked we did to our 'big fella' Beagle - lost his tail bone to bone cancer in just two months and Coffee, the big wolfie golden Husky-like dog, in her fight with bladder cancer. Throughout our lives, we have pulled the plugs of quite a number of strays we've rescued and had no chance of survival. Each time that happen, confusing emotion - did we did the right thing tumult - would plague for months. For Corgie's case, she passed on herself and the duration was only an overnight. She might have suffered the last few hours, the consolation is that death came quick, unlike Beagle and Coffee.

Also maybe we have reached a junction in life we are feeling tired of keeping pets. We have cared for over 20 cats (died and still living) and 8 or 9 dogs (some managed to rehome). With Corgie's deceased, Pepsi, our 14-year-old mongrel, is the last surviving 'daughter' in the house. We've seen and cried over and buried too many deaths. I think it is time we take a breather. Which also means sorry to the future dogs and cats, if they happen to cross our path, as we won't be helping them much. We've decided long ago that the best we would be doing is to rehome them or to hand over to NGOs.