RIP Shasta "McSchnoo" Barat

We fought the inevitable as long and as creatively as we could, but, this morning, we had to go to the vet to put Shasta down.  Her kidney problems had gotten slowly but steadily worse since my last post on the subject.  Her appetite came and went but had mostly been absent during the past several weeks.  She also had become quite listless and was having nervous tremors which made it difficult for her to stand up or go outside on her own.  We took her to the vet last night for blood work and learned that several of her "key indicator" levels were way out of whack.  We changed her medication as directed and planned to bring her back for a checkup this coming Wednesday.  Early this morning, however, she appeared to have some kind of a seizure and was obviously in considerable pain after that.  The vet theorized that her kidneys were shutting down and that her body was trying to compensate.  Whatever the cause of the seizure, there was no real hope of improvement.

In truth, Shasta was never the same after Harry died in May.  She seemed to miss the companionship, and I don't think that she took too well to being all by herself when Nicky and I were out of the house.  Shasta's medical problems simply made things worse, but she was at least holding her own on that front until very recently.

Nicky says that this is the first time in at least 25 years that she hasn't had a dog.  We'll certainly get another one at some point in the future, but, for the moment, we need some time to recoup and regroup.