Here's what happened

Sadie had recently been vomiting violently for several days; we kept thinking whatever was wrong with her would run it's course.  She seemed to feel perfectly fine when she wasn't vomiting.  Finally, a week ago Monday, we took her to the vet.  She had no other obvious signs of problems; the doctor gave her a shot to stop the vomiting and some antibiotics, and she did not vomit once after that.  I was so relieved.  

There was a lot of barbecuing here last weekend, and somebody who didn't know about my rule against feeding Sadie pork bones, gave her some.  Actually, my reason for the rule was that she once became violently ill after eating pork bones.  Little did I know there were other dangers.  

Sunday Sadie started puking again; I had heard about her being fed pork bones and figured that was what had sent her back into the digestive trouble she'd had the previous week.  I kept giving her the antibiotic pills and waited.  

Monday she got worse as the day progressed, and Tuesday morning I called my son-in-law and asked him if he would take us to the vet, figuring the doc would give her another anti-vomit pill and she'd be fine.  She was drooling at this point, and moaning with every breath.  

The vet took us right in, and I told him about the pork bones; he made a disapproving sound and shook his head.  Xrays showed a bone lodged in Sadie's esophagus, and I could tell the vet didn't have much confidence that he could fix the situation.  There was no encouragement in his tone.  He told me that he could sedate her and attempt to reach the bone and remove it; if he couldn't, then Sadie was doomed.  He still did not sound encouraging.

I knew the procedure was taking too long.  Another vet went in and tried, with no success.  Finally the original doc came out and told us he wasn't able to get the bone, and he had a suspicion it had perforated something or other.  He said he could do exploratory surgery, but again, his tone didn't offer much hope.  

"Does that involve a lot of money?"  I asked.  

"Yes, it does."  

Now understand, if I had thought there was a 75% chance of the surgery working, I would have gone ahead.  But I could tell it was just a last-ditch effort that probably wouldn't help.  

"Then go ahead and put her to sleep," I told him through my tears.  

A lady at the front desk had me sign a paper saying it was OK to put Sadie down, and said, "Do you want us to dispose of the body, or do you want to take her home?"  

"I'll take her home," I said, knowing immediately where I would bury her.  

My son-in-law, Kevin, went to the car and got the quilt I had taken with us, and they wrapped Sadie's body in that.  

Once home, Kevin offered to dig a grave for Sadie, but I needed to do that myself.  

I came inside and saw it was time to wake Cliff; I made his coffee and awakened him with the horrible news.  

After breakfast, I got Sadie's body out of the car, still wrapped in the quilt my mother made in 1987, and laid it near where I was going to bury her so I'd be sure and make the grave long and wide enough.  

In this picture, I had laid out the edges of the grave. Sadie is in quilt: the pretty part is against her, and the brown lining is what shows.  The blue throw is what I always put on my lap for Sadie to lay on so she wouldn't get so much hair on me.  I wrapped her in that to bury her.      
Some good can come out of this if someone can learn from my mistake.  First of all, do not feed pork bones to your dog; I don't care if you've done it for ten years and he's fine, DON'T DO IT.  You are taking a chance.  Second, before you give any sort of people-food treat to somebody else's dog, ask them if it's OK.  You never know what might make any individual dog ill.  I have seen a guest in somebody's home in Dallas, Texas, feed the resident dog some bits of food from her plate behind the owner's back, thinking it was a funny thing to do and full-knowing it was against the owner's wishes.

As I was putting Sadie next to the iris bed, I realized I was going to name my next dog Iris.  This has nothing to do with the folk singer Iris Dement, much as I enjoy her singing.  

I am trying really hard to make myself wait for a few months for another dog, but it's so lonely here, I don't know if I can hold out.  My friend Joanna says I should go to the shelter just to look, in case Iris is already waiting for me.   

I keep remembering the old superstition about things happening in threes.  First Blue, now Sadie.  I only have a cow, a steer, and two chickens left.  If something else has to die, I hope it's one of the chickens.