Bella's Favorite Dog

There is no doubt that Duchie is Bella's favorite dog. She calls her Duchie which is pronounced very clearly and distinctly. Even Penny is called Duchie. Bella looks for Duchie in her typical sleeping spots. Duchie sleeps on the floor beside Matt's side of the bed. She sleeps in the kitchen on her mat and sometimes she sleeps on the rug in the family room. Duchie sleeps an awful lot. Bella approaches slowly as Duchie doesn't hear or see very well and tries to use her soft hands to pet Duchie. Of course Duchie isn't very fond of Bella, but, none-the-less, tolerates her well. Over the years, Duchie has become a bit senile and circles the kitchen to family room to dining room and repeat this cycle for a couple of hours each night. Click, click, click with her nails on the tile and hardwood which nearly makes us crazy! (Okay - it just makes me crazy.) She's getting her exercise to say the least. Bella chases her around so Bella is getting exercise too. The combination of the click, click, click with Bella's squeals makes Matt so happy.

For a year and a half, Matt has been making homemade dogfood for Duchie. It's a thick stew and on dog-food-making-nights, Matt eats it for dinner. (chicken, pasta, rice, green beans, molasses, olive oil and a few extra little ingredients leftover from the fridge) We've watched Duchie lose weight, despite eating the yummy, filling food. We knew that her kidneys were beginning to fail. This week she stopped eating the dog food...and nearly anything we offered her. We finally got her to eat a few Cherrios, a spinach pancake and some mashed potatoes.

I took her to the vet this morning to see what we could do to keep her going another week. We're giving fluids subcutaneously twice a day with prescriptions to decrease nausea and pain while increasing appetite. It's quite a feat to administer the fluids as you can imagine, but well worth being covered in dog fur.

Duchess means the world to Matt and his family. She's a wonderful dog and lights up when Matt comes home. She flies (leaps) to greet Matt as she is very attached to him. Matt often refers to her as the Flying Dog. Matt's dad picked her up from the dog pound sixteen and a half years ago. From what I have heard, she kept Matt's mom company when she was very sick. She helped Matt's dad through the loss of his wife, Matt's mom. Eventually, Matt and Duchess became each others' companions and happily explored Baltimore together. I've heard countless stories about Duchess at neighborhood bars and coffee shops, back when dogs were allowed. Duchess made the move to Houston with Matt and you know the rest of the story from here. She's the best dog in the world and certainly Bella's favorite dog.