Our precious Ford (Fool Hearted Man) crossed the bridge today. He turned nine on December 9. 2007. He started limping Thanksgiving evening. Multiple x-rays showed nothing bad but he kept getting worse. He saw a wonderful orthopedic vet who x-rayed him again and recommended that he have an MRI. We had that done a few days ago.
The MRI revealed that he had a synovial cell sarcoma in the joint which had begun to invade the lymph nodes in the leg. We only had one alternative---amputation of the leg, removal of the lymph nodes, and chemo. We took 24 hours to decide that we could not put him through the pain of surgery to give him an unspecified period of pain-free time added to his life. Within one week, his health had deteriorated and he was clearly in a lot of pain.
Ford was our "perfect" greyhound. He came to us six years ago as a foster and we could not give him up. We immediately fell in love with him. He has been the most wonderful, sweet natured animal that one could ask for. He was our official "meet and greet" dog because he loved people. He would go up to everyone, wag his tail, turn around and move into them and lean against them holding his leg up and looking up at them lovingly. It was a wonderful performance. I can't count the number of times that we could have adopted Ford!!!
He was our "lovebug". Our hearts are breaking at his loss. But we could not stand watching him suffer any longer.