General Lee - Details of his Passing

We have been blessed with bonus time of a spring and summer with General Lee.  After his spleenectomy (see March 8, 2013 blog entry) we learned he had hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that arises in the lining of blood vessels and hits all the organs. When a tumor ruptures the results can range from discomfort or on a larger scale rapid bleeding and death.  We are not certain this is what happened but our observations over the past few months align with this idea.  We strongly suspect a tumor in his lungs ruptured which made his breathing labored with the severe internal bleeding.

His passing was quick and relatively pain free.  He was napping in Sylvia's office after a good day of activity for a senior dog doing his favorite things - then another look over a minute later and it was obvious that he had lost strength and was having difficulty breathing while lying on his side.  He pivoted himself into the best airflow and tried to find a comfortable position - Bob and Sylvia were with him and comforting him as he transitioned. This last episode lasted five minutes and Lee passed as the warrior he is still fighting for life. We both felt that he did not want to leave...

It has been a roller coaster of good days and bad days during General Lee's last months.  The chemo definitely helped with extending quality of life.  He had moments so severe that he could not walk from one room to the next without an uncontrolled collapse, a harbinger of things to come.  It is devastating to look into the eye of a warrior the moment he realizes his sword arm does not work.   After a few days he would recover and walk with us down to the garden on his eternal quest for carrots - which he got on every trip :-)  On a weaker day  the climb up the hill back to the house would require a half dozen stops to lie down and rest, each stop taking from five to fifteen minutes of recovery before heaving to his feet to carry on.  On stronger days, such as his last week, he would make the trip several times over the course of a day without stopping, some times even demonstrating his old school "I am an alpha bad-ass" trot along the way. 

His final week has been a good one.  He got to stop a UPS truck in the middle of the driveway  and bark at the driver (a trick he learned from his Rottweiler mentor Bo back up on Mount Madonna in the Santa Cruz mountains.)  Growl at Cooper by way of training.  Play with his favorite squeaky toy and then leave it in the middle of his bed to taunt the other dogs (they would not dare touch it!).  He also trotted off into the woods a few times after deer in the area! On his very last day he was into his routine of circling the sheds hunting rats and rabbits - tail up and wagging happily.  He even hung out with us at the Root Cellar job site. The good life of his last months included a cooked liver every morning with either burger or rabbit as the main part of the evening meal.  The last few weeks he preferred hand feeding.

We placed General Lee in the orchard on Saturday September 14th with as much respect and honor as we could muster.  One of Lees deals was to get a carrot from Sylvia during every trip to the orchard - his final trip down to the orchard was no different. I often gave him slices of apple - we shared one with him as we placed him on his favorite blanket resting on a bed of gold!  That would be Organic Black Gold the finest soil one can buy. We placed his two favorite toys with him as well.  His treasured Orange Orangutan that he had honored and respected for eight years and would shake in excitement whenever guests came to the house and his little yellow chick squeaky toy with a very cool triple squeak.  This is the toy he taunted Coda and Cooper with. His favorite blanket was wrapped over him and fresh sage was placed on the four cardinal points as a cleansing ward.  A bag of organic compost went over the blanket followed by more black gold.  A rich grave for a fine friend and partner.  We plan to place an apple tree over him this fall and are currently in the process of choosing a variety that will be a solid producer and properly honor General Lee's strength of character and vitality.  We feel good about having our friend, who has been so instrumental to the development of UCM and our orchard, continue to be a part of the life cycle that is the orchard...