Our darling Button has crossed over the rainbow bridge. She was 15 years and 3 months which is a grand age for a greyhound. A retired rescue greyhound we took on as an emergency foster many years ago now. Poor girl had been re surrendered after her current family had lost their jobs and could only afford to feed her table scraps. She then injured her knee and they couldn’t afford a vet so they surrendered her, weighing a mere 21 kgs. She wasn’t thriving in a kennel environment so we were asked if we could foster her, get some meat back on her and give her some love. Well, what foster fails we turned out to be! After learning that we were her 7th owners (from racing times to surrender) how could I send this fragile, meek, doe eyed girl off yet again. So she stayed. She was the most beautiful, loyal, gentle and loving fur baby a family could wish for, and she never wanted to let me out of her sight for, oh, 4 years! With time and love her bones disappeared from sight, her fur stopped falling out and after we removed the rotten to the core teeth we got her up to her proper 31 kgs weight. The years flew by and she grew older, more teeth came out, we had “waterwork” issues, her vision started to fail, the knee injury and back required more treatment (medication, massage, physio) but her love and loyalty never faded. Until finally her limping became pronounced, we feared the worst. More tests, not good news. Cancer - did we want to pursue aggressive treatment?. Button was 15 years old, no treatment could make her young or spritely again, she was old and tired. So we spent 3 joyous months with mega pain killers to hand with her eating as much bbq chicken (her favourite) as she could stomach. We had visitors who would wait their turn to sit alongside her and give her pats and cuddles. Until late one night she told me, told me the pain was now too much and as a loving human mother I knew what we had to do. So we helped her cross the rainbow bridge and I held it together, just, until she closed her eyes. Then we wept, and wept a lot more. Our hearts were broken, we loved our darling Button but take comfort in knowing she is free of pain and her aged, damaged and weary earthly body has been put to rest. Til we met again, run free and fast darling girl.
