Nero, RIP: Good dog, bad disease

I've been struggling with this for a week or more, ever since I was no longer to give Nero the daily injections.  He learned that what I was doing was going to burn or sting and he started screaming and fighting to get away from me.  He was trying very hard not to bite me, clearly didn't want to, but he also clearly didn't want me to give him the shots. 

I'm not a believer is putting dogs with cancer through chemotherapy because they can't understand that you are making them miserable in order to try to help them.  Also, it is generally not going to work and at most you are prolonging the inevitable at the expense of their quality of life.  There's a cost/benefit calculation to be made and in most cases, I feel that the costs outweigh the benefits. 

I guess I came to the same conclusion about Nero.  The medication was clearly imposing a cost on him.  It was painful; not the injection itself, which was a minor and temporary discomfort, but the medication would sting once it was in him and he knew it.  I couldn't explain to him that this was the only thing that stood a chance of helping him, as far as he was concerned I was just doing something awful to him.  The benefits were a long shot.  This drug would likely have shut down his kidneys before we made it through the full course of treatment.  Even if we did, it was likely that some new strain of MRSA would have then taken over that was resistent to this medication, which was pretty much the last drug left in the arsenal.  That had been the experience with the prior rounds of antibiotic treatments we had tried. 

After a week to ten days without the medication the infection was coming back with a vengence, as we knew it would.  So today was the day I took him to the vet to be euthanized.  After a good pasture romp yesterday afternoon and again this morning.  A big breakfast of canned food.  It was all I could do.  It's not enough, but it was all I could do.

Nero was a good dog. He drove me crazy with his barking for attention, but he was just so desperate for attention he couldn't help himself and he didn't know any other way. 

I finally decided I would have to come to terms with the dog and we developed a relationship, I took him hiking and we played ball, and it helped us both.  He would have been a very good dog for someone, he was extremely attached and devoted.

He came out of a terrible situation and so I guess his life was much better here, but it was never what it should have been.  I don't believe in the christian heaven/hell thing, but I would like to believe in something like reincarnation, and hope that this guy has a better go of it the next time around.  The Rainbow Bridge myth is beautiful and comforting for us dog people, but in that scenario, I wouldn't want this guy waiting for me, he deserves happiness and a person of his own now.  I hope he will latch onto the next rescuer to die and lead him or her across that bridge.

Nero was a good dog with a bad disease.  Aside from the barking, he was an easy foster in many ways.  He knew the routine around here and he loved it.  He learned things quickly.  He would come when called, he would go back to his kennel when I asked him.  Even when he was loose in the yard, he stuck around.  I guess that tells me he wasn't too unhappy here.  By contrast, the woman who picked him up from the original owner said that he threw himself at her and lept into her truck, ready to get the hell out of there. 

He would have been a wonderful companion.  I'm sorry he never got the chance.  He loved his tennis ball.