Well, here goes...

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a couple of weeks now, but each time I sit down to write it I kinda lose it. It's about this beautiful boy...

Our brave man, Darcy. As many of you are aware, this rather unique dog has been a huge part of our lives for 5 years, and has had to battle a most horrible disease for all this time. Well I am so, so sad to say we finally had to make the horrible decision a couple of weeks back to have him put to sleep.

Darcy came to us as a pup in early 2002. We had been looking to get a Great Dane puppy (don't ask) but was unable to find one, and were keen to get a companion for me, before Brett started doing some long trips with the Navy. We stumbled across an ad for pure bred Weimaraners in the paper, called the breeder and organised to see the dog (she had only one left). When we arrived at her place, it was love at first sight. Whilst Darcy was old enough to leave his mummy, he was being treated with antibiotics for a tummy bug, so the breeder wouldn't let us take him then and there. It was terrible leaving him behind, but we returned a week later and he was ours.

A month or so later I noticed that Darcy was awfully wobbly in the back legs. I realised that puppies are clumsy, but knew that this was more than just clumsiness. His back legs seemed to stiffen up every so often and he would stumble around a bit. When he tried to run he would bunny hop with his back legs together instead. I took him to our local vet and tried to explain what was happening, but of course when we were there all was fine, and he was walking perfectly. The vet thought perhaps he had pinched a nerve, and it had since corrected itself. The little episodes continued so I took him back a couple of days later, and by the time we got there again there no obvious problem. When I got home I decided that next time the wobbly legs happened I would video tape it and take it up to the vet. I did this, and the vet was horrified with what he saw. He wasn't sure what it could be at first. He thoroughly examined him and eventually took x-rays to rule out hip dysplasia. Over the days between vets visits, I had noticed he was a little incontinent when his back was affected, and was actually falling over sometimes. The vet thought maybe he was having some sort of seizures, but after tests him ruled that out too. He promised me he would look into the symptoms and get back to me. At 9:30pm that same night the phone rang, and it was Paul the vet. He said he had been searching for a diagnosis and thought that Darcy had an extremely rare genetic disorder found only in Weimaraners called Myelodysplasia or "Hopper's Disease". Paul said he had never seen a case of it before and believed there to be very few if any cases of it in Australia. It is a type of spinal cord malformation that occurs whilst in utero, similar to Spina Bifida in humans. He assured us that Darcy was not in any pain and that the disease was non-progressive, with those affected usually able to led a pretty normal life. I was horrified that this poor puppy was stuck with this, and scared as we didn't know if this was the worst it was going to get.

We immediately called the breeder to let her know what we had found out. She asked if she could speak with our vet to get a better understanding of the disease and suggested we take Darcy back to see her so she could witness it first hand. When we arrived at the breeder's place she offered to take him back (like that was going to happen) and when we declined her offer she insisted on giving us our money back. We eventually agreed to take half back for vet expenses, but there was no way we were going to give up this very special pup.

In retrospect I think Darcy was destined to be ours. We gave him everything over the 5 short years he was with us. He was such a special dog - patient, gentle and willing to put up with absolutely anything! We have had many trips to his wonderful vets, Paul and Richard, for various symptoms and conditions that have resulted from the so-called non-progressive disorder. He had been through a lot, more than he should have had to.

In recent months Darcy had been battling several serious infections, and his poor immune system wasn't coping at all. He was also experiencing a lot of muscle wasting, and although he ate like a horse, we couldn't keep any weight on him. Darcy was a particularly stoic dog that enjoyed life, however we had noticed over the last couple of months that he just wasn't his usual happy self. It was because of this that we realised we had to make that horrible decision to let him go. Richard, our very special vet spoke to us about what was going on with him and the likelihood that he was not going to get any better, but in fact deteriorate. He reassured us that we had done everything we could and that Darcy was lucky to have found us. Of course, this didn't make the decision any easier but his words meant a lot to us. Thanks so much Richard.

So on Monday 27th August we said goodbye to our special boy. I still get teary nearly everyday over him. We miss him terribly. Denim our other dog is fretting quite badly too. I do feel better knowing that he had the best life he could with us and we did have 5 great years with him. It was just far too soon for him to go.

Thanks for reading this long, long post. But I needed to get it all down.

We miss you Darcy.

Love Cass, Brett, Charlotte, Denim and Troy xoxoxo