Flash Back Friday: Titan

From May 1996

By the time I had begun to love taking pictures of all my pets, Titan has been dead for a few years. The only pictures I have of him are pictures of pictures my parents took. I do have one or two of him when he was older. I had a lot of pictures of him on my computer at some point, but who knows where those files disappeared to. 

My parents got Titan a year or so before I was born. My mom instantly fell in love with him. My brother and I grew up with him. He was a sweet heart. And true to being a Brittany, he didn't stop running until his last year of life. He had gone deaf as he got older and he slept a lot, but he had his bursts of crazy youthful energy. 

He ended up getting some form of doggy vertigo(I can't remember what it's called). I remember that day like it was yesterday. I decided to take him for a walk(at that time, I thought a good walk for him was down our driveway(1000ft+) and back). He wasn't too happy about being woken up and seemed a bit off, but I didn't notice much. We got outside on the deck and when we reached the top of the stairs I noticed he was swaying. He didn't want to move either, so I brought him back inside thinking he was just being a grumpy old man. 

Later that day, someone let him outside where he just kept walking in circles and eventually fell over. He couldn't get up and was puking. My dad called the vet's and within the hour we were rushing him there. Due to my mom being in a wheel chair, we have a van that's missing the middle seats, so we let him lay on the floor as we drove him. I sat with him, wiping up his drool. 

When we got to the vet's office, my dad had to carry him inside. They looked at his eyes and saw that they were moving back and forth. The way they were moving(not necessarily up, down, or side to side) meant that it could either be a brain tumor or the doggy vertigo. They gave him some IVs and I think they gave us some medicine for him and we were on our way home or maybe he stayed the night? It's been a few years. I think he might have stayed the night. The majority of the day I can remember clearly, but after getting him to  vet, I don't remember much else.

It was a long recovery. He could barely stand and didn't want to eat much. One night I had the idea of feeding him some left over hamburg. He ate that right up! After that we started feeding him canned dog food. You know how you're supposed to gradually change a dog's food? Yeah, we didn't have any choice to do that. His farts were terrible. He spent his time in my parents' room and the whole room smelled of his farts. It was nasty, but he was eating. 

I cannot tell you how many times he peed in the house during that time. No one really minded because he was sick, there wasn't much he could do. He had to be carried outside and could barely balance.

I remember one time when he was starting to feel better, he went to go and eat out of his bowl in the kitchen. He was standing there eating and his back legs were slowly lifting of the ground. He was doing a handstand! Poor guy ended up falling over before we knew what was happening. 

Eventually he recovered, but we were told it would keep coming back. When it did come back, my parents made the decision to have him put to sleep. 


RIP Titan. We miss you.