"Lucky's" luck ran out

A couple of months ago I wrote about our dog, Jazz. He was a solid and steady German shepherd who had guarded our house for eight years. He died this week.

Monday morning I got an urgent call from our cleaning lady at home. She told me that Jazz had been staggering around and moaning. Then he went into the laundry room and crawled behind the washer where he lay foaming at the mouth. I headed for home and stopped at the veterinary office on the way. Two of their young vets came with me to the house. When we got there, Jazz had already died. It was very sudden.

As the young women veterinarians looked him over, they determined that he did not have rabies (death would have taken several days) and that he was not poisoned, like with rat poison. They said the most likely cause of his intoxication and death was ingestion of a poisonous toad. I had the sad task of digging a very large grave for Jazz. My only experience with dying animals has been a slow decline and then a joint decision with family and the vet to put the animal down when nothing else can be done for them. And of course the vet handles disposal of the body. The sudden finality of this kind of an accidental death is hard to deal with. While the vets were at the house, they caught up our other two dogs on their rabies vaccines.

We'll miss Jazz.