Cindy approaches the air flow from the air conditioner vent as if she wants to grab it.Her crooked tongue prevents her from opening her mouth, and she tries again and again to grab air with her nose.
Small constant convulsions of the face and head do not allow her to do this, she sneezes, raises her small head to meet the flow of wind again and again.
Here she is, such a tiny red bird, raising her head… not knowing what will happen to her in an hour… that she is like a ray of our sun, like a little bird she will fly away from us to the rainbow… she will feel better.
Her spasms and attacks will stop, she will not have to hide from the sounds that she has become afraid of, from the disease that has paralyzed her, her face, her tongue.
She stopped howling, barking and whining. The tumor squeezed her brain and she went numb. Only her suffering, painfully beloved by us eyes, which no longer cry, but bulge, the left eye is paralyzed, tears do not flow. She looks for a place with her thin beautiful paws to hide. This is how animals hide when they see that their life is coming to an end. She is no longer ill,only past three month.
For two more days she whined, howled and barked. Then suddenly she fell silent. The paralysis lasted almost a day, did not stop with medication. Doctors did not give good prognoses. She is 12 years old and this happened suddenly. In two months the disease took over and took her.
These were 12 happy years for us.
Thank you for being with us. We had such a good time, as we will never have again.
Thank you for leaving your sons Mimmi and Chaki.
Thank you for loving and being loved by Alex.
He will never have such a wonderful Cindy again.
You had such a beautiful life!
You had a very beautiful wedding!
You were like a bride in a blue dress. True, it was already a little small for you, but you managed to fit into it and marry Alex.
A year later, we brought a sambrero from Mexico, you got dressed and ran. Well, yes, you are from Mexico. Chihuahua.
Then the daily grind of life began, like every woman’s.
But first, why did Alex marry you?
When I brought you from Ukraine and you turned from a puppy into a young dog, you caused me a problem, you wanted to be a mother and we lay on my bed for 24 hours without food or sleep, you played pregnant and giving birth. And I suffered, pretending to help. I couldn’t go to the toilet or get distracted. Then I decided that I would bring you from Ukraine a small, smaller than you in weight, male chihuahua.
I fulfilled your request, the groom flew to you on LOT Airlines in the seat next to me across the ocean to meet life in paradise.
Yes, it was a happy 11 years of dog’s life. You lived together in our house, everything was yours – both the house and the yard. Until the end of your life, Alex, even when you growled and barked at him, licked you, your ears, neck and head. When he wanted to lie down next to you, and you were in a bad mood, you growled at him. Then Alex crawled to you with his back. We laughed.
It was a wonderful family, where we learned love and friendship, where a real dog family life reigned.
You, our tiny creatures, gave us joy every day. It was not hard for us with you, on the contrary, it was easy.
Together we managed our large household very well, now I can’t find a place for myself and the house, it turns out, was held up by you. Your boys look at me with your eyes. The house became clean and quiet in a second. So quiet, as I never wanted. After all, I always wanted our house to be full of noise, dogs barking and for the small family to live in it perfectly.
We are lived in a family of Chihuahua. You gave us a happy life.
You had a friend and a Mini in love with you. Unfortunately, he is with you this year in the spring on the rainbow.
You were friends.
Family life was ordinary and you was pregnant and I had to be your assistant. Without experience I tried to acquire it,I watched videos and read many books.
I helped you give birth, it lasted about 6 hours, we had three beautiful little tiny balls of hair puppies.Your first puppies.
They chewed all the furniture on the floor and gave us trouble, but we studied and enjoyed caring for you. I then thought of getting rich, breeding a lot of puppies from you and selling them. But ….Each birth – one dead or disabled, and there were only three births. Then I stopped my ideas, since in Toronto veterinarian services are expensive and your birth cost us a lot. Especially the second. Caesarean and dead puppies. The first birth, we sold two, and one, Bim, stayed with us, he had hydrocephalus and four years later he also died very quickly from sudden epileptic seizures.
I was very worried then, and you saw and understood everything, and decided to help me – you got pregnant, after a cesarean section and when I no longer dreamed of your puppies. You decided to give me a gift and we had three puppies.I remember that moment, I came to the veterinarian, a wonderful veterinarian, whom all of Toronto knew. This Polish doctor loved cats and dogs so much that all of Toronto was in his clinic. Great experience and strong love for him from people. I brought you, Cindy, to him to see how many babies you have and I collected money for your cesarean, because I was very afraid for your health and the health of the babies. The doctor smiled and reassured me – there are three puppies and she will give birth herself. She is a beast. She can do it. Don’t be afraid that there was a cesarean.
And you are great, you gave birth to three beautiful babies for us. Our last babies. As beautiful as you.
Mimmi, Chaki and one, as always with you, died, since in your breed, there is a hereditary.
You gave birth only boys, however, as I did.
And also, three. You and I, we never quarreled. You always understood me, and I you.
In our family, two babies appeared, who stayed and live to this day. One is your favorite, we call him ,,Doctor”. He treats us. He is small and looks a lot like you, only a boy. You loved him, washed him every morning, caressed him, took care of him.
Now your care has passed to me and it is difficult for me to cope, you did it easily. It is very quiet and empty here now. You knew how to manage your whole house without emotions. We open the door in the morning and your whole family quietly goes out for a walk in the yard, for a morning promenade, on the green grass.
And how did you manage to attract attention to yourself – I was working on the computer, drawing or writing a book upstairs, on the second floor. Downstairs, so that you wouldn’t run up the stairs, there were always boxes. So you barked once. Then you rammed these boxes. No matter how we strengthened them, no matter how tightly we closed the entrance. And on the second floor, on a small platform, your Mini, our little Doctor, would appear. Quietly, without words or emotions.
Your messenger. Now he lies next to me. And before he always warmed himself in your embrace, you never let him go. He was the third, between you and your Alex. And you always chose him, the Doctor. A small, tiny repetition of you.
The second is mischievous, circus, prankster and our favorite, Chaki, took your character and cheerful from you.
Today our home is empty. Chaki is going to his owner, now he will live in downtown. And the little Mimmi will remind us of you.
The last days, when you can not cope with the disease, you retreated, went limp. I carried you in my arms, we lay with you in the sun, you slept with me. I fed you from my hands, as it was becoming increasingly difficult for you to swallow.
Birds as always played near us and sang, crickets sounded in the air. Now the first days of August. You loved to bask in the sun these days, preparing yourself for the long and cold Canadian winter. And next to you lay your Mimmi and Chucky. Alex did not like to sunbathe, and rightly so, he has a skin disease from which he also does not live long, it is a dot, a vector growing, similar to a mole. Alex always liked to sleep on his back somewhere inside your soft corners. He loves to eat a lot, in recent years he has poor eyesight and poor hearing. We know that he has grown old, but we did not expect that you would leave him so quickly.
I remembered what a Queen you are. Our Queen is Cindy.
When you started having terrible epileptic seizures, constant, as if something terrible and black had entered you,similar to a black scary spirit, you fought bravely and fearlessly.
You was strong and you have a strong body. But the seizures ate your brain. The medicine stopped helping. You howled. And the black scary spirit took your voice and turned your tongue out. Closed, spasmed your throat, bulged your eyes out. There is a witch of dogs Hecate, yesterday I asked her to leave you with me, but she only did it for a few hours. Already in the morning your condition was very critical – spasmed throat, protruded tongue, constant seizures, did not take any drink or food.
I believe that you are now on the rainbow, where there are many of your relatives. Thank you for the happy time we lived together. I hope that you were happy with us too. You licked my face for two more days, lying with me on the veranda. You seemed to be getting better and I hoped every day that you would come out of this state, you will be cured and recover.
We are all grateful to you, our whole family, because you were our main one, you were the Queen.
Thank you.
You always greeted us joyfully. You danced in front of us, greeting us. This always put us in a good mood. We were always happy with you.
You skillfully raised the last two puppies. Mimmi is your joy and love. Chaki is your copy and your mind.
Now the house is empty. You was our center. However, as in our life – a woman is the center of the family. In the last days, when you were very ill, I carried you in my arms, you slept between attacks with me, covered with a diaper and grunted me pleasantly, as only you can do.
This will forever remain in my memory.
You, like a real chihvahva, ate only boiled chicken meat, as a real chihuahua should. And when we switched to dry food, you categorically refused. I had to go back to chicken. That’s why you lived for 12 long years without illnesses and problems.
I need to tell how you came to be in our house. It was in 2013. My son and I went to Ukraine, to Kyiv, for the first time in the summer, having survived two of the most difficult years for immigration. Before moving to Canada, we had a dog in Kyiv, her name was Diana and she died a month before our departure to Canada.
Therefore, when I arrived in Kyiv, on the first day off, my son and I went to the Kurenevsky market, where they sell dogs, we really wanted to get a new dog. Running around the rows, my son found a puppy similar to the previous dog and we gave a deposit, walked around the market. We stopped near an old plump woman who was sitting separately at a table and on the table stood a tiny trembling dog. I already thought that this creature would be very expensive, since it really was clear that she was purebred. The woman asked us what we were interested in and after listening, she showed her. This is Cindy, showed her passport and pedigree. And said that if we are interested, she will sell her to us cheaper, since she wants to make a gift for her husband’s birthday. She wants to sell this puppy and buy a gift for her husband with the money she gets. This Cindy was from a famous kennel for breeding Chihwahwa. She had vaccinations and a passport.
So Cindy became our dog.
We brought this little happiness to Canada.
That year she appeared in our family and our family grew, our eldest son got married.
It was a very happy year and she was our joy.
Well, and when you, our Queen, wanted children, we brought Alex to you.
If you flew in the baggage compartment of the Russian airline TRANSAT, then the groom had excellent conditions. I remember the first time I saw your character. These were absolutely catastrophic demands of this company, but we had no choice, our tickets were bought, and this company served us, but their attitude towards transporting animals was terrible.
You was carried to the luggage compartment of the plane in a small plastic basket and only in Toronto, after 8 hours of flight, the officer brought you.Completely wrapped in tape, without the possibility of getting access to air. Why this was done. I still don’t know. You were a tiny puppy, only 4 months old, I poured you some food there, but there wasn’t enough water, only what I gave you before the flight. The basket was warm and I quickly began to open the window, scared that I had cooked you there.
And you jumped out of there, growling at me – why did you tape me up like that, why did you wall me up like that, I felt bad. How did you treat me! I was happy, kissed you, grabbed the basket and ran to the exit.
That’s when I realized that we had a real Princess.
Well, then there were all sorts of things – sore eyes from ant bites and my new boots that were gnawed.
You changed our lives. We are very grateful to you.
You were the center of our family.
Our hearth of happiness.
I told all my friends, forgive me, we live in a family of chihuahua,not chihuahua live in our family.Rarely can anyone afford such happiness. We had great happiness that you gave us.
The disease started suddenly. You felt it, but we didn’t understand it yet. You barked, complained, howled, whined… and we thought that there was a calcium deficiency, that your teeth had fallen out and that’s why. We did tests, gave you antibiotics.Low hemoglobin, inflammation showed blood. 12 years. When after the examination, the doctor named a terrible diagnosis. I did not want to believe it. You played so beautifully with Mimmi during your last hormonal heat. I will not forget this. You caressed him in front of all of us, taught him to be a man, gave yourself to him from all sides. And for him, this tiny boy, well, nothing worked out at all. And you taught him again, not letting anyone near you,except him. And I thought that if it was not a real pregnancy, although where would it be from and lasted so long,then this is a false pregnancy. With each of your first attacks. I wanted to believe it.
Then, when the attacks became frequent and strong, we went to the doctors again, the prognosis was bad and I didn’t want to believe it, that at 12 years old, that it was brain cancer and that you had a maximum of 3 months to live. I started reading. We started giving symptomatic treatment, antiepileptic drugs, hoping that it would prolong your life. But two weeks ago, suddenly all the drugs stopped working and you fought and I fought, but the epilepsy became permanent and paralyzed you.
The last two days you lost your voice, the tumor was pressing on the center of the brain. You stopped walking, fell, stopped eating and drinking.
There is no positive prognosis in treating dogs with epilepsy at the age of 12 and older. You can prolong their life a little by giving them treatment, but you cannot cure them of the underlying disease. I wanted you to stay with them longer, at least for a few more years. But this year and time and your destiny, they decided otherwise.
………
And you stood with your face to the air flow from the air conditioner in my room and caught the air with your face. Cold air.
You waited for 5.30 pm. to fly to the rainbow happy.
Now it’s evening. 8.00 pm.
Our house is empty.
Your photos are left.
You was beautiful.
Thank you for everything.
We love you