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That's Remus in October, a little before Halloween. He'd been to Petco to get his nails clipped, and they were decorating the dogs as a seasonal thing.
At this point, Remus was on a heavy dose of a diuretic to keep his symptoms under control. In June, we started noticing his stomach swelling, a symptom most likely of a failing heart that could no longer pump blood hard enough to keep his blood vessels inflated. The diuretics helped; he outlived his prognosis by several months.
A couple weeks ago, the diuretics were no longer enough. We had them tap his belly one more time and upped his dosage, but it took him two weeks to recover from the procedure, and by then his stomach was already bloated. Today, we took him in to the vet for the last time.
He was a good dog. He had some food issue; he was scared of his own shadow. But he loved us absolutely and was almost brave in protecting his cats.
Someday soon, I will upload a video of him being chased around the floor by the eight week old Pippin, which occurred in July, shortly after his diagnosis. One last kitten for Remus to love.
The last few nights, we've been trapping Remus in our bedroom at night because as his misery increased, his behavior decreased, and he's been chewing and destroying when alone. Pippin -hated- having his big brother locked away from him and attacked our door and cried.
He will be a sad kitty tonight. So are we all. Even the ones that aren't kitties.
