"Children are for people who can't have dogs." -- Author Unknown

Somber news to report on my family's thirteen-year-old golden retriever, Max. His health seems to have taken a drastic turn for the worse. Monday afternoon he was with my parents at our cabin -- they went up for the day to meet with a couple builders since they are planning to tear down and re-build our cabin. While they were there, Max's back legs completely gave out, causing him to collapse.

Frail and unable to walk, they took him to a vet in Pequot Lakes. She thinks he has a large tumor in his stomach that ruptured and started bleeding so she gave him some herbal pills to stop the bleeding. Tuesday morning and afternoon, he couldn't walk. My parents placed him on a rug, both grabbing one end of it, to carry him from their bedroom to the living room to the front yard, etc. He started walking later on Tuesday and appeared to be doing better yesterday morning, but now he isn't doing as well as we hoped.

I haven't gone to see him yet, but my mom tells me he just looks sad and pathetic. For a dog, he has a tremendous variety of facial expressions, sadness is written all over his face. He's extremely slow to get up and move around. He refuses to eat his dog food which means my mom is busy cooking chicken, hamburger and casseroles for his meals. He appeared to be in good health and spirits up to this point so this comes as a shock. In fact, he'd just been to the vet for his heartworm check-up and we were told he was in good health for his age -- no idea how they missed that tumor. We thought we'd at least have one more summer with him at our cabin, but things aren't looking so optimistic anymore. My family puts the needs of that dog before ourselves so this is rather devastating, to say the least.