TEDDY BEAR SPENCE

11 Years & 11 Months

In January 2001, after losing a precious puppy, Daisy, in an unfortunate accident, we adopted our sweet Teddy from the Humane Society. He was 2 years old. His former mom brought him in and gave him up because she said her boys would not take care of him. When we picked him up, he grabbed the leash in his teeth and walked us out the front door. Teddy, my daughter, and I, were a family. It was just the three of us for many years and our world revolved around Teddy. We planned our lives so that most of the time one of us would always be with him so he wouldn't be alone.

In March of this year he started coughing really hard and we took him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The staff did not do much to comfort us and we thought he was going to die right away. We followed up with our vet and he put him on vetmedin for the heart and lasix for fluid retention. The vet said that we don't know how long he will live, but that he had animals that had lived for up to 2 years. He said we could have 6 months, 2 years, we just don't know. But he was very kind and gave us hope.

He became really picky with eating and we had to do some pretty creative things to get him to take his pills. He had a really good spring and summer and got to go on a lot of rides and visits to granny and papa's, which was his favorite thing to do. He got to play lots of ball, lay out on the porch, sniff around the yard and chase his friends (neighbor's dogs) up and down the fence.

He gave it his all and even though he got a little thinner and was losing muscle, he still seemed like our same precious baby. We had nine months more with him and we are very grateful for that, but wish it could have been longer.

On his last full day, although he was weak, we took him for a bye bye because his ears perked up when we asked him. He also got to lay on the porch in the sun for a short time and on his box in front of the window with the sun on him, which he always loved. Rest now, my sweet boy.