Affaire's Rainbow Goddess, "Iris"

Iris lived a long, happy, healthy life for the most part. She was the perfect dog. Never got into any trouble. Didn't have the penchant for ripping things up that her brother did. Never barked at all - left that to the other dogs. She put up with her brother's constant play and horrible habit of sucking on her ears. She never grumbled once - just let him do whatever. She ended up with hematoma's in both ears to the point where I had to tape them to her head. She never balked at anything. I never had such a perfect dog in all my life. She was an angel.

Until she got to advanced age, the only issue that Iris had was a mass on her left hind foot. This seemed to be a familial trait. Her father had something similar and at least one other puppy he sired had it also. I had it removed. You can read the biopsy report here.

When Iris was about 6 1/2, she started having UTI issues. After a long course of antibiotics, it cleared up. But it did return periodically and had to be treated again.

Her echocardiograms were normal until she reached about 8 years old. At that point, she developed mild mitral and tricuspid valve degneration. It continued to progress as she aged. By the time she was 10 she had an audible murmur.

Iris developed another UTI when she was coming up on her 12th birthday. This time her bloodwork showed her kidney values were a bit elevated, so we put her on a kidney diet. Her murmur had also become much more pronounced. The vet prescribed antibiotics for the UTI and I made a home prepared diet for her to help with the kidney issues and we scheduled an appointment with the cardiologist for the following week.

A few days later, Iris went outside to pee. I went out to check on her and found her in the yard in a squat with her front collapsed on the ground. Looked like she squatted to pee and just dropped. She had not been out that long, so it had just happened. Her heart had given out.