Thanks for the great information. I lost my 12 year old pom in February and my little Pixie came in from day one, 2 years ago and decided she as going to be Maya's keeper. Maya never liked other dogs and coexisted with Cali my other Yorkie but never let her get close. Pixie could and would always lay right in front of Maya with her little butt squeezed in between Maya's front legs. If Maya so much as moved Pixie alerted me by barking like crazy and kicking her back feet. Pixie always slept with an eye open and ready to alert me to Maya's slightest need. When Maya had to go to the Rainbow bridge it happened very quickly and I didn't have time to really figure out what to do to help Pixie. I thought of bringing her to the vets while we let her go, but was afraid Pixie would then associate the vet with Maya never coming back. For many weeks Pixie would run to the door everytime someone came home and when I came in she would be all excited and be looking in my arms to see if Maya was in them. She definitley went thru a grieving period. About 4 weeks after we started noticing changes in Pixie. She would sleep so soundly that we would have to gently shake her to wake her, we think she had not slept soundly since coming to us so she could watch over Maya. She started playing with toys and became very snuggly with me. Now every morning she comes over and lays her head next to mine and waits for me to open my eyes and then just snuggles up for awhile. Even today if we mention Maya's name she jumps up. I think it helped that when Maya passded we had 3 others so they were not only dogs all of a sudden.
It has to be so hard for Gypsy seeing her buddy like that and with extra TLC she will come out of this tragedy ok. My heart goes out to you as you continue your journey of grieving. Somedays I just get so sad when I think of Maya. |