Rest in Peace, Wunny

The last picture I took of Wunny, as Turner used to call him - about 2 weeks ago

Sad news. Last night - about 24 hours ago exactly, our sweet Gordon died.

Heath was cutting the grass yesterday afternoon and knocked on the door. He told me he thought Gordie was dying. I looked over, and he looked pretty pathetic in the grass. He couldn't even hold his head up!

So Heath rushed him to our vet, not very far away. They told us that his temperature was 109, and that they worried about brain damage at 108. My friend Sallie happened to be at the vet, and called me with a play by play. She told me it didn't look good - the doctor said he was an extremely sick puppy. They gave him an IV and tried to get his temperature down.

It finally got to 104 and sent Heath with Gordon to an overnight pet hospital. They had him stabilized. The hospital said they were just going to observe him overnight.

But then they called and said they weren't ready to give up, but he had brain damage. He was going blind and his kidneys were failing. We told them to keep us posted.

About 30 minutes later, the doctor called back. She was distraught and told us that he died of a blood clot. She determined that he had a seizure sometime yesterday afternoon that disabled him and he wasn't able to get any water. Therefore, he had a heat stroke. That is when we found him - they said 15 minutes later he would have been dead. Once they got him stable, they placed him in an oxygen chamber to regulate his breathing and they were checking for blood clots. They said when they came back, he was dead.

This was at the end of April. This day our friend Brooks (in the yellow shirt) saw Gordon, turned and ran to me and said "Miss Kelly, what is that?" He was serious - he had never seen something so beautiful.

Ironically, after 2 years of Heath suggesting, I had just agreed to give him away. Heath was out of town this week, and I felt like Gordon was one more thing to take care of as we tried to get out of the house and he was too much for us with 2 young children. He sheds, and he panics during thunderstorms, and we were looking around for somewhere and someone to give him a better home.

He really was our first child - he endured a lot to make me laugh. And he used to sleep in the bed with us!! Wow - he had definitely moved to the back burner these last couple of years. Bless him.

Well, more specifically, I had a real moment of frustration about a week and a half ago. I got a phone call from our precious (not really) neighbor at 6:20. She told me Gordon was "in her yard". Ugh. I realized Heath was already gone to Bible Study, and I quickly got dressed. I must have taken too long, because when I walked behind our house, she had turned on all the sprinklers (by the way - her yard is fenced in. He was barking BY her yard, not in it. I am not bitter) to chase him away. So I got soaked running through the yard and to the street behind us trying to grab that little weasel. I might have been nicer if I had known it was his last week of life. That made the decision, though - our time with him was running short.

Now I feel bad for thinking that, but I have a peace that it was his time to go! The sweet doctor was crying so hard (I am sure we will be too when we get the vet bill), but we are at peace with his crazy self being gone. (I think. I go back and forth as I write this! It is very weird to look outside and not see him after 6 and a half years! And I just realized it was exactly 6 and a half years we had him, we got him on Dec. 24, and he died June 24. Weird.)

For those of you who used to receive our Christmas cards, this was one of my favorites - waiting for Turner in his crib before he was born

Tonight it was pouring down rain, and Heath looked at me and reminded me how Gordon acted in rainstorms. Which was HYSTERICAL! We used to have to turn the dryer on just to get him to drown out the storms. This happened several times in the last week, and looking back, he woke up one morning screaming at 3 or so, without a storm outside. He hadn't been eating like normal either, so I am thinking he was already being affected by the blood clots.

We will miss you, little guy. Thank you for being our first little boy and enduring all of our abuse plus the abuse of two crazy toddlers!! We love you! (And I promise we won't replace you ANYTIME soon, no other dog could handle us!)

Gordon MacNeill Henderson

November 13, 2004 - June 24, 2011

Already winning beauty contests in heaven

I wrote THIS POST about him a few years ago! Now I am really glad I did!