KC

I have a dog named KC.
   She has a heart condition and yesterday was a bad day for her.  I almost lost her.
   She was born August 9, 1997. When she was born the Vet said anything over ten years would be on borrowed time.The Vet knew the history on her dad's side of the family.  Her great grandmother died when she was 11 from a failed heart, her grandmother when she was 8 while getting her teeth cleaned, her grandfather died from a reaction to heartworm medicine he was taking.  Her dad died at 13 from a heart condition and her paternal uncle died from heart worms.  Her mother and sister died from a car accident.  Her brother was put to sleep after he had been hit by a car and just couldn't recover without being in a lot of pain. She's lived over 13 and a half years, which is remarkable for her family. She is the last on of her relatives living and I am lucky to still have her. What amazes me most is for a mutt like she is, I know so much of her families medical history.  
Like said I almost lost her today.  She wants me to be around her and I can't get any work done since she needs constant attention.  While I was holding her I decided to get the photos of her out, of her first year. She was born August 9, 1997.  Here are some of them**.

KC - the first day I got her and her first photo Sept 19, 1997

KC (9-19-97) abt. 5 wks old

 I got her  on my dad's birthday.  I teased my dad about her being his dog.  He had enough problems with her dad since I got the dog that was named Tom Collins.  When I got her dad he was going to be the only male in my life.  My dad had a fit that I had a dog named Tom since that was his name.  To please my dad I called the dog TC.  I tried to breed her dad since he was a papered dog, but he didn't produce anything until 13 years later when he met.......

KC Mom, Rascal (Oct 1997)

 KC mom - Rascal, who was a Chihuahua.  TC was a Dachshund and papered.  Needless to say the owners of Rascal were not to happy for their dog to have puppies with TC.  They produced 7 puppies but three of then died right after they were born.  By the time we had gotten KC we had had TC neutered to keep him from running off again. When we found out about the puppies we said we would take the girls, since the boys had already found a home.  But the owners got so attached to her sister Little Rascal that they decided to keep her so we only got KC.

KC & TC meeting for the first time (9-19-97)

KC with her brother ChoCho (Oct 1997)

KC's other brother ChiChita and sister Little Rascal and her dad TC

KC when she was 7wks (Oct 1997)

Her favorite place, the guess bed.

Where KC was suppose to sleep.  8 wks old.  She was smaller than her sleeping companion. We had rubbed the toy on her mom, so it smelled like her mom and other family members. It was a trick the vet told us about to make her adjust to her new home.

KC started to have the biggest ears.  People who saw her would always say she looked like a bat.

KC as Batdog  (Dec 1997- 4 mo old)

 It was around this time that her daddy died.  We all missed him a lot, and she missed him the most since they were always together.

KC and her toy companion.  She is now bigger than it.  Jan 1998- 5 mo. old

I like this one because it gave you an idea of how big she was.  Each square was 6" x 6".

KC at 6 months old.  Chewing on her Mardi Gras toy (Feb 1998)

 As you can guess she was a very good watch dog.  Her hearing was always incredible.  I wonder why?

Because KC was so lonely we got her a companion.  At first we called him 'E' or 'EC' or Galaxy  because of the mark on his head, but then we were always calling him KC's Buddy.  He started to answer to Buddy and not the other names.  It was a no brainer to change his name to Buddy.

Buddy's first photo (3-6-1998)

Buddy and KC  together at our house (3-16-98)

It wasn't long before KC got Buddy to realize the place to be most comfortable was the guess bed.

It didn't take long for them to be inseparable.  They are always together.

Now here are the photo's I took of her and Buddy on 3-21-2011.

They are both getting to be so old.  I will miss them when they are gone.
It is so hard trying to decide what to do.  She doesn't seem to be in pain but yet you can see the panic in her eyes when she gets short of breath like she does.  I was hoping mother nature would make that decision for me.

** I know the early years are not the best pictures, but they are all I have.  They were taken with a camera that used filmed ie before digital cameras were popular.  Back then you had to buy roles of film that would let you take either 24 or 36 pictures at a time.  To develop them it would cost about 25 cents a picture which would be the equivalent of spending about a dollar today.  I would take pictures sparingly and hope they would turn out. The only way to preview them would be to get the film developed and then print prints - problem with that was the prints would be about a dollar a piece so it was cheaper just to print everything and hope for the best.  With most roles of film I would be happy if I got 3-4 good ones, because you never knew if they were going to be blurry, or have the right lighting ect.