Bye bye, Luna

Luna came to our home almost 17 years ago. She was the youngest westie of her siblings and the only female. After picking her up from the glass bowl where she was, I looked at her walking non-stop while my mum was signing the documents at the clinic.

On 16th October 2004, the bell at our home rang, and my mum put Luna on a box quickly. My sister didn't expect what was going to happen; that box meant her best birthday ever.

When my sister opened it, she couldn't believe it. It was the happiest face of an 11 years old child. That small dog with a bent ear and black eyes like olives won our hearts from the first time on.

"The veterinary said that her ear will eventually stretch," said my mum.

In a short time, Luna learned to respond to her name, to relieve herself in the street, to bark, to accept our cat Tomy, and to be the conflict mediator between us. She learned that her name was not only Luna, but Tiqui. Tiqui was the sound of her pears in the parquet flooring when she walked: tiqui, tiqui, tiqui.

Luna has tasted all kinds of food: paella, beef, fuet, steak, ribs, fish, Spanish ham, normal ham... We learned that she didn't like chickpeas and that chorizo made her mouth itchy. She has also traveled a lot: Andorra, Cantabria, Asturias, and Tarragona. She has swum in salt and sweet water, she has put her pears on the mountain and at the beach.

A few years ago, the hairdresser detected a small bulge on Luna's back. We took her to the clinic but the veterinary said that it wasn't dangerous, it was a fat bulge. Over the last years, the protuberance became bigger and bigger, and Luna went downhill at the same time: she became deaf, she couldn't go to the street anymore and we needed to clean her eyes frequently because she had a lot of sleepy dust in the morning.

Despite her old age, she was good and people couldn't believe that she was that old when they ask for her age.

Three weeks ago, she began to cry and howl at 3 AM. Shortly after, she began to run quickly at our home while she was crashing with the walls and furniture. We woke up quickly and stopped her from crashing, but a few moments later, she had a seizure. She felt on one side, her body was trembling while foam was coming out of her mouth, she wet herself, and we were crying without knowing what to do. We thought that she was going to pass away. She never had a seizure in the past, and the agony had a duration of 2 minutes.

After the seizure, she was confused and disoriented. She began to walk into the kitchen, but she did like she was blind. She walked leaning on the walls, crossing the kitchen in circles. After 1 hour of non-stop walking, she went back to normal as nothing happened.

The next morning, my mum took a bath for her, and after drying her, she went to the balcony to sunbathe as usual. That afternoon she ate normally with her characteristic voracious appetite. We were surprised that she recovered that well.

For the next weeks, she ate like always, poop nicely, and looked happy. When I came back from the gym in the evenings, she came to greet me with her slow walk. Nothing changed with Luna, it looked like a false alarm. We thought that the seizure was a product of crashing with some furniture. Maybe she woke up at night and couldn't see anything and got scared. She was an old dog, who knows.

Last Saturday, we hear the same howling at 6 AM, but this time I run to prevent her from crashing with something. While I'm holding her in my arms, she begins to have another seizure. That howling was the alert that something bad was going to happen.

The recovery process was like the first time, she was a little bit confused after the seizure (which lasted shorter than the first time), and then everything was normal.

The next day, my mum and I noticed that she didn't eat as always, she seemed tired, and her eyes looked at us weirdly, like she didn't know us. We thought it might be normal because of the seizure. In the evening, after walking for a while, she fell on the floor, we went to see her, we pet her, and she looks ok.

While I was in the swimming pool, my mum called me and told me that Luna passed away. She said that Luna walked into the kitchen with her, fell to the floor and she stopped breathing. I was shocked, I knew she wasn't going to last forever, but I didn't expect it was going to be that day.

Yesterday, while I was in the car with my sister, driving to our grandma's home, I thought that it was better for her, that it was her time, ~17 years in this planet is a long time a westie. Today, I can't stop crying. Our home is quiet as hell, and I feel like I've lost a sister. 17 years is a lot of time living with a dog.

Luna lays down near our cat Tomy, under the lemon tree of our grandma's home. I don't know how to end it. I just wanted to thank you for everything Luna, we'll miss you.