A bit of singing...

go see our YouTube clip of Hazel Singing!

Hazel lives on in our hearts we have so many happy memories...

Hazel loved swimming...any little bit of water and she was in it; fountains, small ponds, swimming pools, gross muddy water, rivers, creeks, streams and this kiddie pool in the pic below. What's funny is she didn't start out that way, as a pup she was terrified of the water. But a vet friend just picked her up and put her in town lake, she started swimming and that was it. Her discovery of fishing came later. In fact, there's a pic lower in the blog of her standing in a creek. That creek was where she discovered fish for the first time. After that, she was obsessed with fishing and even though she never caught anything she never tired of it.
I know this pic looks a little scary--sometimes Hazel's eyes did that glare thing with a flash. But it's one of the few pictures I have of the two of us.

More Hazel Pics

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and love.

Hazel 1997-2007

6p.m. 28 June, 2007.
Our sweet Hazel girl is in doggie
heaven where she can swim and play forever.
I want to tell you that Hazel was the most amazing,
loving, playful, sweetest and smartest pet I've ever had.
I wish I could tell you that she was bugging me for a walk right now.
It's that time of the evening when we'd usually do one of her
favorite things in the world next to swimming.

She was so great at communication--so subtle and yet
direct. At least, for me it was direct. Now I realize
she was trying to tell me something the other night
when she looked at me with this strange look I'd never
seen before. I think she was trying to tell me that
something wasn't right. I felt it, I even told Lanell.
She must have known this was coming--just like
she knew to warn me of the danger on that
cliff years ago. (read about that in an earlier post)

This is what happened:
I knew something was up when I got
home on Tuesday evening after work. I walked in and
started talking to Lanell. Evie was there but no Hazel.
I asked where Hazel was and Lanell said she was in her bed.
Which was very strange as she always
greeted me when I came home.

Lanell would tell me that sometimes
Hazel would lay by the door minutes before I arrived.
But this time she wasn't there. When I went back to see her
she just lay there, on her side and could barely get a wag going.
I started crying and Lanell came back and we just talked about
what could be wrong. I decided then that in the morning I
was taking her to the vet unless something changed.
Early in the morning at about 3:00, Hazel woke me up to go outside.
I went with her and took a flashlight. Same thing, bloody runs but
no other signs of anything. She came right back in, went to bed.

The next morning, Wednesday, we were all up but Hazel wouldn't
even get out of bed. I called the vet and told them I was bringing
her in. The receptionist said he was really booked but
that they wouldn't turn any animal away. When we got to the
vet's office, he wasn't in yet so I wrote a list
of what had been happening.

I reported that Hazel didn't eat at all on Tuesday and since
Monday was having bloody runs. Not overly bloody but definately
every time she went. I also said she was not vomiting but was very
lethargic. Then at the very end, I mentioned the little whimper she
made when I helped her up out of bed.
It was like a wince. Not anything major.

We just figured it was some intestinal thing.

I go to work and at 11:00, the doc called to tell me that he
was going to keep an eye on her, give her a dewormer in case
that was causing her illness and then he said she seemed to
also be having a lot of pain in her hips. I just figured it was
the sort of pain that some older labs get in their hips.
I asked him to focus on her stomach ailment and once we
got that under control we could focus on her hips.

I called at 1:00, the receptionist told me the doc had
gone to Round Rock with another patient. She told me that Hazel
was resting okay, but she seemd to be experiencing even more pain.
I told her I didn't understand where the pain was coming from and
I asked to speak to a tech or someone else that knew more about her
condition. She said no one was there--that they were all at lunch.
Great. I asked if Hazel was on IV fluids and she didn't think so.
Great. Now I'm just getting more and more worried but trying
to keep it together.

I called again at 4:00 and still no doc. I obviously was concerned
and pressed for more information. The receptionist got a little
short with me and said the doc was with a patient that was much
worse off than mine. Not the right thing to say. Finally the doc calls me
at work at about 5:30 and says that Hazel is in a lot of pain that he's not
sure what's going on and that he thinks she should stay overnight
for observation. I told him I thought she should come home with me
because she'd be more comfortable at home. The freaky thing is
that he obviously had not really checked her out thoroughly because
by the time I got there maybe 45 minutes later, they had taken her
outside to lay on the grass. She was muzzled and didn't even
notice me walking up to her. No tail wagging, nothing. I dropped
down to my knees in front of her, held her face and looked
into her eyes and just lost it. I knew something was seriously wrong.
I looked up at the doc with tears streaming down asking him what
I should do-- that clearly, she needed help.

Doc said he could refer me to the emergency center that had
a great orthopedic specialist. He was thinking it was
a slipped disc. I had to call Lanell because we were supposed
to meet some friends for dinner as it was Marcela's birthday.
I told Lanell that I needed her to come right away to Dr. McCleod's.
She didn't even ask what was wrong---she just came.

This next part was horrific. The doc brings out this
wooden board/stretcher thing and asks me to help him and
his assistant lift and hold Hazel onto the board. The problem
with this was that Hazel was in so much pain that moving her onto
the board and trying to hold her there while she's writhing in
pain was impossible. She fell off the board--it was right when
we were trying to maneuver her into the back seat. I couldn't believe
it and I just picked her up and moved her onto the board and into
the car in one motion. I was scared and angry and just in total shock.

I was angry at the vet for not being there and for not having
a better way to transport her. I was angry that she had been in
such pain for so long and that I didn't know more about it.
I was scared for her, not knowing how to soothe her and just
wanting to get her help right away.

So we're finally in the car and I'm thinking aren't there animal
ambulances? Because I just knew the car ride was going to be tricky.
I drove about 20mph with my hazards on from 45th and lamar
to south lamar and ben white. Every little bump sent Hazel into this
gut wrenching cry and she would try to stand and move which
would hurt her even more. Also, because she was in so much pain,
she was snapping---not like aggressive snapping but it was like we
couldn't touch her or hold her steady because we didn't have a
way to muzzle her. Damn vet should have left it on. It was horrible.
The pain that Hazel was in was so intense, she couldn't
even look at us. She was totally out of her body.
All I was focusing on was getting there without
causing too much discomfort.

The long and short of the visit at ER is the x-rays didn't
show anything. Everyone was totally baffled.

Wednesday night, before we left, we went back to see her.
They had her on fluids and Fentanyl, a pain killer that is
commonly used for women in labor. When she saw us she
actually started wagging her tail and moving closer to us.
I wanted to crawl in there with her and stay with her all night!
I was so glad she was getting some relief.

We met Dr. Stephanie Beardsly-Kerpsack this morning at the Emergency
clinic. I was hanging onto hope that she would tell us it was a fluke,
Hazel is all better, ready to go home.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. This sudden onset of
pain was for certain a shocker but once she explained
it to us the picture was pretty clear.

The doc said that upon a digital exam of Hazel's rectum, she
felt what she thought was a mass and that she wanted to give
Hazey a little anesthesia so that she could perform a more
thorough exam without hurting her. She said she might find
nothing, she might find a mass, and via a better x-ray might
find something more to tell us.

She also said that she could probably tell by feeling the mass if it was
more likely cancerous or benign. How did this mass go undetected?
The mass was so internal and surrounded by the pelvic bone that it
couldn't be palpated from the outside. What she found was in fact,
a mass in her colon and it had grown more then halfway around it.
She said it felt like cancer and that it explained the pain Hazey was in.
The x-rays only showed slight arthritis--something so insignificant
that it wouldn't cause this type of pain.

The doc believed that it had grown to such a degree that
it was most likely wrapped around a part of her nerve.
Either way, it was not operable because of the
size and location of the tumor. She said she's conservative
when it comes to surgery but aggressive when she believes
it is absolutley necessary. She felt like because of the
size and location of the mass, she wouldn't be able to
get it (without having to break her pelvic bone) and that it
seemed to be intertwined with a major nerve.

She said it like this, "It wouldn't be a bad thing to do a
CAT scan and I could see how large the mass is and
exactly how it's positioned and we'd know for certain
via the CAT scan if the mass was cancerous. Or we could take a
biopsy and wait until Monday to find out because it takes 48
hours to get results back from a lab. But she said,
given Hazel's condition and how much pain she's in,
that option wouldn't be something she would do unless
we absolutely felt we needed it. And then she said,
it's not a bad thing if you want to stop.
So I asked the doc if she felt like she needed to do a CAT
scan to know for sure and she said no, not really.
So, our decision had to be for Hazel.
To let her go and be free of pain.

How did it happen so fast? Well it's just one of those things---
it just had finally grown to the point of causing her unbearable
pain. I'm glad she didn't have to suffer too much. We're just
shocked about it all happening so fast.

We made the heartbreaking decision to let our Hazey go
this morning at 11:30. I nuzzled my face into her fluffy
neck, held her head in my hands and kissed the top of
her head like I always did. Lanell stroked her nose and eyes.
We told her how much we loved her, that it was okay to go
and what a beautiful little being she was. That was it.

We're hurting and shocked and so heart broken.
It's just not how we imagined it would be.

Sweet Hazel. Sweet, sweet Hazel rest in peace, my love.

The Hazel Saves Lucy at the Green Belt Story, cont'd

I was more than halfway up the cliff/hill but it was very slippery as it had rained the day before. So traction was tricky---but still I had no hesitation...I felt good and strong and powerful! Then Hazel comes running up beside me and plops herself right in front of me. Did I say that at this point it was kinda steep so I was almost on my belly. Hazel is there in front of me not more than an inch away from my face, panting and staying put. It was weird! I asked her to move...she just kept panting and licking my face. Then I was more adament, Hazel! Move! No budging, more licking, more panting. So I had to move her out of the way---and she went but reluctantly. I couldn't figure it out. Then I take another step and sliiiiiiiiiiiiip---my foot slipped on the mud, I lost traction, there wasn't anything to grab onto and I begin a quick descent, gaining momentum as I slid past little trees that I tried to grab on the way. I was headed for this ledge I had just climbed up and over and I was thinking I've gotta stop before I get to the

And I wasn't able to stop. PLOP! Right on my tail bone and hand firmly planted on the top of a sharp rock. I finally had come to a halt. Hazel comes running up and is looking at me---that's when I realized---she was trying to tell me something.

I was hurting, got myself up hobbled back home with my angel, my little trail guide and best girl, Hazel. I had to get stitches in my hand and had a slight fracture in the very last bit of my tailbone. From that point on, I listened to Hazel.