Goodbye Archie Boy

Such a sad thing happened over the summer school holidays. Our pup that we recently got had some relapses with his autoimmune disease. He was going ok on his medication, but really was never the same dog since initially getting sick when he was just 17 weeks old. I've only just now got to the stage where I can share this here.

Archie-boy days before another relapse

I won't go into the sad details of what happened, all I will say is that when we weighed up everything, and thinking about what the future would hold for him, we decided to have him forever put to sleep, soon after some new medical issues presented themselves at the tender age of 6 months.

That day required some serious emotional eating by all involved in the form of various flavours of ice cream.

Archie in emergency when he first got sick

I painted this artwork to work through some emotions I was feeling surrounding the whole experience. The painting initially read "Will it be ok", and I painted over some of the words for it to read, "It will be ok." It's like I worked through some emotions from the beginning of the painting to the end. The painting is filled with texture and layers to symbolise the depth of our lives and emotions. The spikey bits represent those challenges we face every now and then. The painting is filled with shapes symbolic of happier, calmer times too.

When I was painting this I was asking the universe some pretty unanswerable questions, as we have had some grief surrounding us with close friends and losses and challenges they are going through at the moment.

I don't know what the answers are except that we just try to do our best, and get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other.

***

We thought Archie's last day was in this photo below when he had a particularly bad relapse, but we managed to get a bit more time with him. Since getting sick he always had gunky eyes, and his nose was always dry, yet dripping constantly and under his chin was always wet due to the medication making him so thirsty. I have no idea if he was in constant pain, but I suspect from his lack of activity, he wasn't doing too well.

I'm still trying to work through all this, and I get that he was "just a dog", but I really didn't cope well with it at all. In some ways, it was harder saying goodbye to him than my two previous older dogs, who I know had come to the end of their lives. I was left with no residual anger or guilt when their times were up; just the grief.

Archie really did tick all the boxes for us as a dog and we were over-the-moon happy with him. It took me a long time to bring another dog into our lives, out of fear of what we'd get, and I was so relieved when Archie came along. He was perfect. (Except for perhaps the leg humping, which he never did again after getting sick but we would have gladly welcomed back!)

Now, we are in the same boat again. We really do want to share our lives with a dog and have a pup grow up with our animal-loving kids. But I'm fearful of what we'll get! I just need to trust that the right dog will come to us eventually :)

Happier days - pre auto-immune disease

Our lives were enriched for a short time by having this precious boy with us. I feel bad for my girls who went through this journey alongside us, but I suppose there are some life lessons in there for them. 

I have made him a memorial stone and he has joined our previous dogs Bender and Leela in a section at the back of our garden. (This project can also be found as a free tutorial which you can find here: DIY pet memorial stone)

Goodbye Archie-boy. We loved you to the moon and back and we hope you're having a humping, I mean "twirking", good time in doggy heaven.

Jules.