Nutmeg: 11/4/2000 – 3/29/2009

We lost Nutmeg on 3/29/2009 after a 6 month battle with cancer.

Nutmeg was born as the first puppy in a litter of eight in our household; we arrived seconds after she was born. We managed to keep 4 of the eight dogs in the family, Kimber, Orion, George, and Nutmeg. Nutmeg had a loving and loyal personally and remained a puppy for the first 7 years of her life. Her tail was like a whip and broke many glasses on the coffee table and bruised many legs. When we would come home, she would greet us to massive tail and back end wagging- she was so excited to see us we wondered how she managed to stay standing with the back end moving so quickly. She wasn’t the brightest dog and struggled to work out simple concepts to our other dogs- like the path of a thrown ball and that it would eventually land and she didn’t’ have to wait for it to land to run after it. Even being the slower thinking of the three dogs- she managed to figure out how to open the gate first so she could lie on the couch while we worked. She was greatly loved. She loved to go for walks, rides in the car, play tug of war, chase a ball, cuddle, or run with the other dogs when they ran- even if she didn’t know why they were running. She managed to get into trouble quite often, whether it was digging in the trash, taking food of the counter tops, or eating a couch.

In November of 2008, Nutmeg’s front left shoulder/leg swelled up with a baseball size lump and she was unable to move. We took her to the vet and elected to have exploratory surgery. After surgery, the vet confirmed it was a tumor but the lab results came back negative for cancer. Nutmeg appeared to be healing and was back to herself. A month later, the area began to swell again and we returned to the vet. The diagnosis and lab work identified an infection of three different bacteria she was given antibiotics to combat the infection. The infection grew worse and did not heal- her shoulder lump returned and progressed from baseball size to football size. This is when the vet knew it was a cancer. She was losing weight and even the external skin was not healing. We kept her on the antibiotic but the cancer was too aggressive. She dealt with the pain for a month without letting anyone see her weakness. She kept her weight up but was losing muscle mass and her bones were beginning to show. We gave her a steak dinner on March 26 and March 27 and on the 28th and the 29th she refused to eat. She was growing increasingly uncoordinated and continued to lose muscle mass. On the 29th, we elected to have her put down in a difficult, heart wrenching decision.

You were a gentle and loyal friend and will be greatly missed. We look forward to seeing you in Heaven and hope you are enjoying your time with the Lord Jesus. We were blessed to have you for the time we did. I would gladly put up with you eating the couch, tearing up the trash, taking food off the countertops for a few more moments with you…

Jeff from NV