Keiko

My sweet girl.
Time is aging us both.

Keiko went to the vet today.

She was in heat recently only this time, there was still some spotting.

And then it got worse.

She's had a saggy tummy ever since that huge liter of 10 puppies when she was 2 years old. When I took her to the vet for her crazy skin allergies she used to have, in which she gnawed off ALL of her skin from the neck down, the vet told me it was just like with human mommas: the skin was just stretched out.

But this time, with this bleeding, I noticed that the saggy skin wasn't just saggy now.

It was hard, like a tennis ball.

So off to the vet we went.

The same vet who saw Sassy and Ambush last year.

Keiko has cancer.

She's 10 and a half.

She has skin issues and she's deaf and she has seizures but now we are on a waiting game and Cooper and I stood there and listened to these horrible things that could happen and what to do if they did and I just thought, "Please don't let that happen..."

We already know we went 10 days too long with Sassy and one day too long with Ambush. Rick and I already decided that we had to make sure we are :days too early" before we are ANY days too late this time. 

We really thought back in December of 2017 that we were almost about to lose Keiko and she crazily got better. This time, we're in a "two pain killers a day keeping her comfortable" mode.
But don't get me wrong.

She will still cut you to shove her way to her spot under the dining room table.

She will still look completely offended that the short little basset hound gets to eat off the same spoon as an Akita.

She will still not hear a word you say in all of her DON'T YOU KNOW I'M DEAF indignation until it's time for pain meds and that cheese wrapper crinkles.

Below is one my all time favorite pictures of Keiko. She was only 2 years old. She's with her 2nd born, a little girl we called Deuce.

Keiko didn't have skin issues or allergies or seizures or a single silver hair and she still heard you when you called her name and cancer was never even a blip on our radar.

This is my Keiko Girl.
And I love her.