we lost bosco today.

he came to the xmas party (briefly) on sunday, til he tried to jump donny (i think he thought that was fun)...he ate 3 big piles of roast chicken and all was right in his world. sometime on sunday night, he had a small stroke..not a big one but with his profound deficits, every little loss counts. he wouldn't eat or drink anything yesterday or today..not the tripe, not the roast chicken, not even the cupcakes.

and here was the crossroads...a huge part of the quality of life that we were able to give bosco, revolved around food...he not only liked the taste of it but it created interest in his life. it became the stimulus to get him to connect with the world, and it worked well enough to get him barking and demanding and looking for opportunities to get more. all of us can see his little face staring intently at us as soon as we walked into the room..his interest in what we were bringing to him, and his eagerness to sample it.

so back to the crossroads of difficult decisions...we lost that connection with him and once again the world around became irrelevant to him.
would it have come back? maybe..maybe not. bosco got here too late, with too little time left for us to create other kinds of relationship pathways.

i took him to the vets late this afternoon, still undecided. i needed the vet to tell me what to do. bosco was not yet actively suffering, he was just again disconnected from the world.
and the vet said...where does he come back to from this? she is the one who used the word "irrelevance" to describe his interest in us. so maybe we could have helped him past this til he once again looked forward to good food (and the bodies who brought it) or maybe we couldn't.

i have no answers here..just the one question in my mind..what of real value could we give to bosco that we have not been able to give yet?
probably not much because he came too late.

bosco died gently in my arms. rest in peace little prince, i wish we had more time..