Oliver-13-054 | M | 15 YRS
This morning, GRRNT Permanent Foster Oliver quietly made his way to the Rainbow Bridge after a full 15 years of earthly life. And what a life! Oliver first came to GRRNT in 2011 and was adopted out. In 2018, he was returned to rescue after his family decided to raise guinea pigs and Oliver thought they were his personal chew toys! Yes, he was obsessed with small furry things, alive or…not. When he came in, he was in rather rough shape. After a battery of tests and sending bloodwork to Colorado State for a definitive diagnosis, it was determined that he had lymphoma.
Typically, this would mean only another few months of life – especially for an 11-year-old dog. But Oliver was far from typical. He was placed on a low-dose prednisone regimen and his foster mom also researched Chinese herbal remedies, which he took for about a year. At his monthly vet visits, his dogtor – Dr. Gary Raiczyk at Angel Parkway – would just shake his head in amazement and tell his mom to just keep on doing what she was doing. They used to joke that at the end of the world, the only thing left would be the cockroaches and Oliver. Sadly, that was not to be the case.
In the past two years, Oliver became deaf and blind. Did that stop him? Not at all. He was still able to navigate a daily life full of simple pleasures: a basket full of peanut butter bones and antlers that was placed on the floor for easy access, two healthy meals a day that always had him trotting to his bowl, a couple of daily meanderings through the yard to sniff the breeze, and laying at mom’s feet every night as the day wound down.
But once he was no longer able to enjoy any of these things, mom knew the Bridge was calling for him. He spent his last morning enjoying a breakfast of steak and shredded chicken in bed, as he could no longer walk to his bowl. He ate every scrap, fortifying himself for his final journey. With mom stroking his fur and telling him what a lovely old man he was, he quietly slipped away to the Bridge, no doubt to be greeted by his brothers, Cooper, Cody and Chance, who shared the last four years of his life.
Godspeed you, old man. You were best in breed.