She gave everyone at the park quite the scare today… Overheated, from a toasty living room, she arose and began panting very heavily upon my arrival. It’s odd, how she goes from near silent sleeping breath, to massive lung filling pants in an instant, but this is not uncommon when she’s overheated.

Today though… today was different, more overheated than normal her breathing took on a rasping labored sound. A symptom that, for dogs, never bodes well. I got her to drink and we went to the park, hoping the cooler outside air would help. Upon hearing Ebony a new dog owner pulled her dog back to give her a wide bearth, as if the signs of old age were a contagion.  My dog walker friend made sure I had a “contingency plan”, where to take her if “the time” came… And a lady who had just recently lost one of her dogs to old age left without saying goodbye, I could see the recent loss surfacing in the lines of her face.

Yes, labored breathing really is that serious of a symptom, and we all know that ebony isn’t long for this world. But, when we arrived home and she ate, then laid down and got comfy, and ceased all scary breathing, in the process eliminating a number of potentially fatal things, like bloat.

In the end, I think she was just very overheated, and I am very glad to have her for another day.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Comic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.