We'll Miss You Mochi

Unfortunately, we had to put down our wonderful dog Mochi this morning.  This is heart-breaking and a huge loss to our family.  We got Mochi down in SoCal when we were in our first year of Grad-school.  She was truly our first "child."  Grandma and Poppa helped us name her as we wanted a Japanese name for her.  She's been with us through so much in her short 6 years of life.  She jumped between apartments with us, moved into our first home with us, went on so many hikes with us, camped with us, was with us during Landon's birth, was patient and gentle with Landon, and was just the most amazing dog anyone could ask for.  We don't know what we are going to do without her.

We've known since May that there was something up with Mochi.  She just seemed...different.  Her energy waxed and waned, but in general, she wasn't her normal spunky, energetic self.  We kept saying maybe she's just getting a little older or the heat because after a couple days she'd bounce back and be normal.  A few months back we took her to the vet and he said she looked healthy and blamed her tired spell on the heat. About a month ago we took her in and told our vet that something was more up.  He ran blood tests and checked her out and thought it was likely her back because everything came back normal.  He said if she wasn't better in a couple weeks after having a cortisone shot and anti-inflammatory meds (yes very chiropractic of us) to bring her back.  We took her back last Thursday and they took an x-ray.  It showed that she had very enlarged spleen.  He said due to her young age that it could be benign and we could just have it removed, or it could be cancerous.  So we had an ultrasound set for Tuesday (tomorrow) to see what the prognosis would be.  Then last night she took a turn for the worse.  It was an awful night.  After staying up with her most of the night, John knew that it was time. She was whining in pain and could no longer walk.  This was absolutely devastating for us.  When Landon woke he knew something was up.  He loved Mochi but he wouldn't pet her or kiss her like he normally did.  He was scared and he had every right to be. This was just so hard.  Thankfully a vet friend of Shani's was able to be over early to help Mochi out of pain.  What a difficult thing to watch.

We still can't believe she's gone.  There are traces of her all over the house.  We will start putting things away but it's all still too raw.  It seems impossible to explain to Landon what an amazing dog she was. She was his first "word" and his best fried. We have so many pictures that we will always share with him.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we mourn the loss of our dog.  She meant so much to us.