Braveo
It has taken us a few days to calm down & accept things enough to be able to make this post. As some of you know, on June 13th we were preparing to head to Tennessee for a couple of days to take care of things concerning our new home, & also as many of you know, our sweet little Braveo was a diabetic. Well, on the 13th I packed his medicine & as we were getting ready to leave out for Tennessee, Braveo started having back to back seizures. It was awful to watch. He'd had them before, but nothing like this. We rushed him to the ER vet, & they did manage to stop the seizures, but they let us know that his little body was in worse shape than we'd known. The insulin was no longer controlling his diabetes as it should. Between that & the seizures, he'd suffered a great deal & was dying. We made the heartbreaking decision to let him cross Rainbow Bridge.
Braveo would have turned 15 in October. He came to us in horrific shape when he was just four weeks old. Over the years we have often joked he had nine lives like a cat. (Perhaps that's why he loved the cats' food so much. 🤔) The reason for that joke was the fact he had survived things he really shouldn't have. For starters, he was purposely burned as a puppy by an evil couple, which is how he ended up with us. When he was about a year old, we took him out to potty & a sick & starving coyote ran out of the woods & jerked him up from right next to me. He was severely injured; crushed chest, lacerations, broken bones. Being the stubborn little guy he was, he refused to give up & to everyone's surprise, including the vet's, he was up & walking less than 24 hours after the attack. Another time, he & our black lab, Black Jack, were out playing in the woods when some hunters who were illegally hunting on that property decided to shoot them both. Unfortunately, they hit Black Jack, but Braveo managed to literally dodge a bullet. (Y'all best believe both myself & Michael made some hunters' lives miserable over that one.) Another time, a lady just decided she wanted Braveo because he was cute & literally stole him from our yard, but we managed to track him down & bring him home. So, you see, our little boy was tough & resilient, but even the toughest get tired. I guess he used up his nine lives. I know it sounds cliche, but there is a bright side; he is no longer in pain, he no longer has to take shots twice a day & pills he hated. Our boy is healed & back with Cerri, Toot, & Winter across the bridge. That's the only thing that is half way holding our hearts together right now.
