We came home yesterday at about 4pm and Sid was acting groggy, ashamed and lethargic. There was a tiny amount of slobbery puke on the floor under the kitchen table. He was so changed that we immediately took him to the vet. They checked him out and said that he looked fine, but to watch him over the evening. We took him home and he lay next to us the whole time. After a couple of hours, we tried to wake him up, but he was so loopy that he barely noticed us, so we drove him back to the vet’s. They took his blood and gave him a few X-rays, but while he was on the X-ray table, he had a gran mal seizure that stopped his heart. They tried CPR to revive him, but he was gone that quick.

The doctor did what he could to find out what went wrong. The blood work came back almost perfect. He was slightly anemic, but everything else looked great. The X-rays looked pretty good as well. There was a slight growth on his liver, but a death of liver failure would have taken about three days, not three hours. The slobbery puke on the floor indicates that he must have had a seizure at our home while we were out. The doctor was able to rule out poison and other toxins. Considering the two seizures and lack of other indicators, the vet thinks that it was a brain tumor.

I know we took the best care of him while he was alive. I had Dr. Lynette’s office fax over all his records to the emergency vet and we were able to compare all of his blood work every year for his whole life. We took really good care of him and we rushed him to the vet the second we noticed there was something off about him. He died quickly and without pain, so I’m grateful for that.

I’ve been looking at all my old videos of Sid. Here are my favorites.

I’m sitting in my blue comfy chair. I have Elvis on the left arm, looking out the window, following every movement of birds and debris. I have Maggie to my right, sitting on the footstool and Sid on the floor.

I always imagine an alien group observing us. They can tell where all the life forms are in the house and notice that we all congregate in one room, no matter the size of the house. In fact, we are all congregated in one corner of that one room.

I imagine that they would find this behavior strange. Why would they all hover in one tiny corner of that large dwelling? Are they scared? They aren’t close enough to be getting any warmth from each other. They each seem to be moving of their own free will. Why do they congregate when they could spread out? They must get some benefit from the close proximity, despite their differences in genetic make up. What is it?

When I noticed her playing, I pressed pause on the TiVo, which disrupted her play. Just knowing that I was watching her play was enough to stop the festivities. It was as if she was some sort of sub-atomic particle refusing to both play and be observed at the same time. There was no way I would be able to film her. She wouldn’t even let me watch her.

Elvis peeked around the furniture trying to catch a glimpse of her playing with his discarded toy, but she noticed him. Sid pretended not to watch her play by lying his head down on the carpet, but kept an uneasy eye on her the entire time. With an audience of three, it was too much for her bashful nature and she abandoned the mouse on the third stair next to the scratching post.

The total time she played with the mouse was maybe twenty seconds before the three of us stopped our respective activities and watched her in amazement. Twenty seconds of pure and unadulterated joy washed over us and we drank it in as much as we were allowed. No time for cameras. Not even enough time for Elvis to retaliate. Just a beautiful outburst of bouncingly playful happiness that was impossible to capture on film. I thought to myself, “I’ll just have to remember this.”

Mike and I taught Sid this trick. He doesn’t do it quite as well as this cat, however. I’ll have to see if we can get him on film.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw them both in the bed. It was adorable.

Winter and snow seem so far away now. I know I just got snowed on my first day in Yellowstone two weeks ago, but it’s so warm now that I can barely remember being cold anymore.

No matter what the weather, Sid has fun!

I love how at the end when Sid barks, everyone scatters, even him. Maggie runs from her observation point, Sid stands up to get away from the sharp kitten teeth and Elvis flees from his bark.

Just a friendly “pet” to keep you company on your trip to Hell!

Here is a link to the original:

• Pick Me! » Sid Vicious: Demon Dog

If you notice, dogs in Hell don’t wear bandannas and they CERTAINLY don’t have rabies tags. I had to edit those out for this photo, which was far easier to do than to try to edit out those glowing green eyes.

Sid and I went outside to test the camera on my new 3G iPhone. I heard that it was inexplicably better than the old one, but I can’t really tell the difference. On a beautiful sunny day like today, the cameras on both phones work fine. I guess I should be testing this indoors.

In the end, the true killer features of the new iPhone is the 16GB of storage and the GPS. It’s nice to see that I have plenty of room on my iPhone now. I was pushing the limit with my 8GB.

I miss Sid. We had to take him to the kennel because of all the
company.