Farewell to my sweet Eli : (

I am broken hearted because we finally had to come to terms that it was time to put Eli down. We have had him for 13 years so he was really like our first child. For the most part, he remained pretty spry for a 91 year old man with cancer.

Here are some pictures of him soaking up the sun in his last days:


Here is Eli's story (this is long b/c it's mostly for my own benefit/therapy):

Eli Nickolai Holladay
July 26, 1996-April 27, 2009

When I was in the Miss CASC pagent, back in my Carl Albert days, I was over at my dance teacher's house and while I was waiting for her this adorable little fluff ball broke free from his room and came bouncing into the living room where I was sitting. I saw him running toward me so I got down on the floor and he jumped right into my hand and gave me a million kisses on my cheek! He was so small that he could literally sit down in the palm of my hand and I could cup my hand around him. I fell in love with him at that moment! I went home and begged and begged my Mom and Dad to buy him for me. I finally convinced my Mom to come with me to meet him and right away she could see how I fell in love with him. They got him for me right around Christmas time in 1996. Jason was so mad at me because he told me he didn't want a dog. Then not too long after that Jason and I got married and moved to Washington. Jason fell in love with Eli right away and he soon became the center of our attention at all times...he was our child. He was so good for me to have around when Jason was in the Navy and out to sea all of the time. He was a good protector and a good movie watching pal. He would always snuggle up with me and share a bag of popcorn with me as we watched a good chick flick. However, he was very orninery back then. If the door was open, he would dart out at full speed. One morning he got out and I looked all over our neighborhood for him. I had a huge chemistry test and an evil professor that would never let me make it up so I had to leave without knowing where he was. I was so worried that he would be gone forever. After my test, I had to head to work at the bank and on my way to work my boss called to tell me she thought she had Eli at the bank. I got to work and sure enough somehow he found his way there! They said he was just sitting outside of the doors like he was waiting on me. They took him inside, gave him some treats, and he hung out in the break room until it was time to go home. There were other times when he ate all of my Thank You cards from when we got married, dumped out plants and spred them around the room, and shredded papertowels/toilet paper throughout our apartment. He loved to chase ducks. One time he caught one and was so surprised that he had no idea what to do with it. He hated giant poodles with a passion. He thought he was the size of a Rottweiler and would pick a fight with one in a heartbeat. Eventually, he got all (most) of that out of this system and turned into a total sweetheart. We really feel like he learned every word in the English language. We really didn't have to speak to him in dog-like commands...we just talked to him and he would understand. He has been all across the nation with us...even into Canada. He finally got his first back yard to freely run around in when we built our first house a few years ago. I am so glad he got to experience that freedom of being able to choose where he wanted to mark some territory without being on a leash! Oh yah! I can't forget to mention that he could do a perfect handstand and land his poop on top of bushes or fences or trees...whatever he felt was challenging at the time! I swear it is true...we've had witnesses!! Then came Hudson...that was a very big change for him. It was a love/hate relationship. He was sad that he was no longer the center of attention but he would sleep outside of Hudson's room and attack anyone other than Jason and I that tried to go near him. I am very happy that he got to experience that part of our lives with us though. I feel like he got to be with us for so many of the very important parts of our lives.

Now the sad part...about 1 1/2 yrs ago we started noticing a knot growing on Eli's jaw. It was right where he liked to have the side of his jaw scratched so we noticed right away. At first we thought maybe he got bit by something but it grew pretty rapidly in just a couple of weeks. I took him to the vet, she tested it and found it to be Melanoma. She told us there was no treatment for Melanoma so she sent us up to Texas A&M to the Vet Oncology specialists. They did a full body scan and did further testing on the tumor to find if the cancer had spread and to figure out some treatment options. They sent me away for most of the day while they did the testing and then called me back to give me the verdict. When I arrived they were very blunt with me and they told me that Eli could only be expected to live another 3-6 months. They told me my only option was to remove half of his bottom jaw and to give him a new treatment that consisted of a vaccine shot every month. All of this was going to cost me 10K + (depending on how long he would live and how many shots he would receive.) I had to be a rational human and realize as much as I love him, he is a dog. They told me that even after all of this, it would only prolong his life by about 3 months or so. I asked them why I would choose to remove his bottom jaw and have him spend half of the life he has left trying to recover from such a traumatic surgery. Their response was that I should look at it as 3 months is a long time in dog years. I felt like it would be a selfish thing to do. My heart took over and I really wanted to keep Eli as long as I could so I went home and pondered for a while. Then I went to my local vet again and I asked her if she could surgically remove the mass for him with me knowing that there would be no way to remove every single cell. I just wanted him to be more comfortable. She told me that she would not be able to remove the swollen lymph node in his neck but she agreed to remove the melanoma mass. She removed it and a couple of days later Eli was feeling spry and healthy again. He lived another year and a half! It has really only been the past couple of months that you could even tell he had cancer but it has been growing rapidly lately. I haven't been able to get him groomed because of it so he looks pretty scrubby. This is gross but the tumor began to ooze and smell really, really bad. I bathed him often but I couldn't make the smell go away. It was hard to even been on the same floor of our house with him. This made me feel sad because I didn't want his last memories to be of us shooing him away b/c he was so stinky. He was just still so spry that I felt like I would just be taking his life and I just couldn't make that decision. The past 2 weeks he has actually slowed down a lot and has not been eating much. I have been able to see a big decline and we talked to him and realized it was time. We took him to the vet on Monday which was a super rainy, sad day. I held him in my arms the whole time and we thanked him for all of the love he gave us and said our goodbyes. We will miss you dearly sweet Eli. Thank you for all of the good memories and love you gave us over the past 13 years!