The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Rest in play, Holly Wex.
Born 9/9/09
Came to live with us 9/28/2013 which, I'm pretty sure, was yesterday.
Died 1/2/2020 by our choice when her body wouldn't keep her going. I'm blaming it on 2019.

Thing 2 wrote this, lightly edited by me:

Today, 1/2/2020 at 11:05 AM EST, Holly Wex, our beloved dog took her last breath. She was suffering from total kidney failure, and was euthanized in my arms by lethal injection of sedatives. She was 10 years and five months old.

Holly was a wonderful dog. She loved licking faces and handing you toys to hold while she chewed on them. She loved cuddles and would let anyone take care of her. She loved the outdoors and futilely chasing all manner of critters. She liked spicy foods, chicken, and most of all, cheese. She loved barking at anyone and everyone who walked in the door, and would try to herd people. If you were in a group of people and went to go to the bathroom, she would try to cut you off and bark gently to get you to go back with the rest of the people.

She loved napping in the sun, and talking long walks in nature, sometimes unplanned ones. She loved being around people, especially when it was most inconvenient. And most of all, she was a comfort dog. If you were sick, or sad, or angry, you’d have Holly at your side in no time at all. She was both the most chill dog you’ll ever meet and the most hyper, energetic fluffbal.

Holly, Princess puppy face, fuzz head, Mrs barks-a-lot, who strained her ankle running down the stairs at a mail truck no fewer than four times. You will be sorely missed.

She is survived by two siblings, and two parents. All human.

Somehow forgot to mention this - our dog Holly has been sick with some kind of kidney condition.

We noticed she was drinking a lot and peeing a lot. The vet measured some minor weight loss, and she wasn't eating regularly. So far we've done a couple urine samples and one ultrasound, which have been not particularly conclusive. We've switched her to a special kidney diet(*) and started her on a nighttime med per the vet's prescription.

Since nothing has been definitive about what has caused the problems the vet wants to do a biopsy, which is going to be expensive. The new diet (which she loves) and med seem to have improved things somewhat but she's still guzzling water and peeing a lot. She put the weight back on quickly, though. She went through a couple days of accidents on her bed so we've switched to twice-daily dog walks when we're all out and to more frequent walks when we're home and that seems to have fixed the accidents.

She's still our slightly crazy protective mutt and we love her. But she's getting to be an old lady dog and facing some of the ailments that old lady dogs face. Part of me is convinced she won't be around much longer so I make sure to crawl into her crate with her every day and have snuggles and scritches. Sometimes she still wants to play, but most of the time she just comes by to get her petting and then go back to lying down again.

(*) Anyone relatively local to us who wants an unopened bag of dog food let me know. We'd just gotten a new bag when we had to switch her. The dog food company refunded our money but doesn't want the food back so we need to find a good home for it.