Scruffy, also known as Scruff Scruff, Scruffalufagus, Scruffanator, Scruffers and Scrubby, was a dog that we inherited from my grandmother almost five years ago. Up until the point that Grandmother rescued her, Scruffy had a rough life. She had been badly burned on her back from what appeared to be hot grease and we’re pretty sure she was hit by a car a some point because of a fracture in her leg that was revealed in an x-ray. When Grandmother met her, Scruffy had recently delivered a litter of puppies. She would run and hide from her puppies when they tried to nurse because they were so big. Their father was obviously of a larger breed of mutt. Grandmother thought Scruffy was sweet and decided to adopt her. Scruffy moved to New Albany and lived the good life with Grandmother for an undetermined number of years. Grandmother passed her on to us in the spring of 2005 after Scruffy chewed up two very expensive hearing aids.
Scruffy was already advanced in years by the time we got her, but she was our baby. We said we would never let a dog sleep in the bed with us, but we quickly ate our words. In fact, we even built a ramp to help her in and out of our bed! We walked her, sang to her, dressed her, fed her table scraps and even taught her to fetch.
Soon after Scruffy came to us she developed a cough. After a visit to the vet, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The vet prescribed her some pills, but didn’t think she would last more than a few months. Almost five years later and after Christmas this year, Scruffy’s cough became deep and frequent. We increased her dose of medicine, but it had little if any effect. We were faced with the difficult decision of when to put her down. Her overall quality of life was still good, so we decided to wait.
We never had to make that decision. This past weekend, Scruffy died in the car on our way to New Albany. She never made a sound. It was a sad moment, but we knew we had done everything we could to make Scruffy’s life the best it could be while she was with us. She always seemed so thankful to have us and we felt the same about her. She will always be our first family dog. We loved her and she will be greatly missed.
