July 23, 2023: Banshee.... In very sad news to report... the "quality of life" thing our vet talked to us about reared its ugly head YET again in a way we shouldn't have been surprised with. Heart attack... JUST like Thump and ALMOST in the same spot in the living room.

I was thinking about her passing in the back of my mind for a few days prior. Then yesterday, there were more signs as though she also knew it was coming. Seeing her look up at the leashes — the coupler black leash to the left then her blue leash to the right... then she looked at me. Yeah... "good times", I agreed.

Yeah. At least I was "prepared" for it. Still sucked monkey balls. As I spent time loosening Banshee's collar, the other dogs came and sniffed Banshee pretty thoroughly. Since then, Sassy's been standing guard like this.

This morning, the dogs have been somber. Akula is now eating out of Banshee's bowl so by residual scent to a dishwasher washed bowl yesterday morning, she's still there with him and it now takes him close to 10 minutes to eat. Slow feed bowls are wonderful and hers was less noisy than his. I let the dogs free range (not kenneling them to a tiled dining room in case she pukes overnight) last night and most of time I've been awake last night into this morning, Sassy's been here. I was wondering about her initial reaction but now it's clear it's hitting her. Thankfully, no yak to clean up. She has digestive issues the older she gets.

REST IN PEACE, BANSHEE.

Banshee WAS a Louisiana Catahoula Leopard mixed with Siberian Husky. She was a special kind of howler on both sides of the family tree and when an ambulance or fire truck roar through the neighborhood, she's compelled to sing us the "song of her people". Fortunately, police cars don't make that same kind of noise and they do not set off our dog alarms. The dogs ultimately have names taking some kind of military aircraft reference and Russian theme and/or personality trait. A Banshee is in reference to a British target drone and a banshee — a female spirit that wails at the time a person dies. Whomever is in the ambulance could be going to die or may already be dying....

Here she was when I first saw her. The howling at me should have been my first clue.... When I saw that mental image of a little animated heart above her head, I groaned and muttered out loud — "I just got adopted...."

The shelter attendant brought her out for me and she stared at me for a while with those big, blue vibrant "goat eyes". It kinda was love at first sight for both of us.

Banshee certainly felt at home in her new den.

She has her moments of being clueless and looking cute. "Ummm... whut??"

Look close at those eyes and how clear they are....

In early July 2018, she suddenly one morning had a fully dilated eye and an emergency trip to the vet which led to... glaucoma....

We somehow went through 20+ years of keeping northern breed dogs without incident. Then we somehow adopted 2 dogs who were years apart, from different locations and different parents... and now they're in the same pack. We learned the hard way in just how real it can get.

About 3 weeks later, I survived a stroke and I've not yet recovered enough to easily take many pictures of Banshee's eye which was successfully treated and now she gets a dose of 3 different eye drops. She's now blind in one of her very unique goat-looking eyes but she she is healthy and happy and has adapted to having only 1 eye. We were "fortunate" to already know about Husky glaucoma and we were able to address it the morning it appeared so we had the "gentocin" injection done first. It "took" the first time we had it done.

If you're reading this prior to reading about Akula, here's what I'm referencing:

Google wants me to search "gentamicin injection". So I did. Here's some info on it:

So I did. Here's some info on it: Gentamicin Injection

Glaucoma

Banshee gets Timolol in her "good" eye and Neomycin / Polymyxin B / Dexamethasone then 5 minutes later, she gets Dorzolamide HCI and Timolol Malelate Ophthalmic Solution (say that 5 times fast!) in her "bad" eye. Thankfully with Good RX, and other competing discount companies, we get discounts on all her and Akula's prescription eye meds!

Banshee at Animal Ophthalmology Clinic with Akula's eyeball doc, Dr Robert Munger, smiling as she almost always does.

For a devoted guard dog who's always on patrol, she remains good natured.

While she is one hell of a tracker-kind-of dog — she NEVER tracked the possum above her! LOL!