A sudden goodbye

 We know Bernese Mountain Dogs have a short and happy life, but it was a bit of a shocker Tuesday to come home from paid work to find our lovely big boy Reuben in real distress.

 Seen here Sunday morning with his daughter Ripley he seemed absolutely fine when we left him, a bit thinner than your average bear of a Berner but otherwise quite bonny.

 Here he is 48 hours before on patrol with the clan

 on a river patrol., In hindsight the number of times he sat down might have told me he was not feeling 100% but he was his usual self, boss dog and great company.

 So I will spare you the gory details, suffice to say the conservatory floor was covered with blood, big pools of it. The poor lad was having difficulty breathing and kept coughing up more blood.

Yours truly took him straight to the V E T he jumped into the back of the truck, Reuben not the vet, which did give  a faint glimmer of hope but that was extinguished a the vets, the back of the truck has fresh blood and Reuben was in dire straits. He still made friends with everyone in the vets and they put his frantic breathing to the hot weather. Those that knew BooBoo Bear would have spotted the lack of tail wagging. The V E T did an examination and delivered the obvious, Reuben was desperately ill and short of a miracle in the next few minutes the situation was hopeless. BooBoo pressed his head into the vets shoulder as the likely cause and immediate future was discussed. Reuben had had a persistent cough for months which was treated as lung or heart worm and it seemed to improve, but we all suspected lung cancer. In a coughing fit while we were at work a blood vessel had ruptured and his lungs were filling with fluid. V E T was surprised he had survived until we got home . It was certain that another fit would rupture something more severe and be extremely painful so while I hugged the beautiful Bernese bear of a dog the Vet carefully put his misery to an end and BooBoo crossed the rainbow bridge to the rest of the clan. A merciful and peaceful end to a very wonderful dogs life. We are lucky to have his children and grandchildren to live on at Rock HQ.