A Tribute to Kira

For several years, the main picture on the top of this blog was me with our three little black poodles; Kira, Rosie and Kai.

Rosie passed away from old age during the summer of 2020, and Kai followed her a bit over a year later during the fall of 2021, also of old age. Now Kira has passed away yesterday, at age 8, of an unknown but several-months-long illness.

Kira, who has been in Callan’s care since my cancer treatment in 2020, first developed a mysterious lump last fall. We had it surgically removed when it became infected. They expected to find a cheatgrass seed, which can burrow under a dog’s skin and cause an infection. There is a lot of cheatgrass in the Boise area. But after the surgery it turned out it wasn’t cheatgrass. We also tested the lump for cancer, but it wasn’t cancer either.

Later we removed a second lump on her other side, equally mysterious despite testing. Then she started losing weight, so she was put on a round of antibiotics. After more testing, the vet seemed at a loss, and unable to help.

We took her to a second vet, who did more testing and prescribed a stronger antibiotic for a longer length of time. She rallied briefly, but soon started losing weight again. So once again she went on more antibiotics, plus an appetite stimulant and painkillers. She’s been in and out of the vet’s for several months now.

Nothing was working, and she became frighteningly thin because she had essentially stopped eating or drinking. Yesterday morning when Callan took her into the vet she was in liver failure, so we made the difficult decision to put her down. Despite extensive testing, we never did find out what she had wrong with her.

Eight years were too short, but they were good ones. We adopted Kira as a puppy during a time when both Callan and Laura were living with us in California. She was truly the whole family’s dog. When I got cancer in 2020, Kira went to live with Callan and Chirstina while I recovered. They kept her even after I recovered, because Kira was such a sweetheart.

Here she is as a tiny puppy in November of 2014. It doesn’t get any cuter than this!

Learning to go on walks with the big dogs:

Her first big hiking trip:

Bigger by springtime, playing tug-o-war with Kai.

I didn’t export these photos in a way that maintained the chronological order. So the rest of these pics are in random order. When the three poodles are together, you can tell which one is Kira by the white on her face. And the ball at her feet! Unless hiking, she was rarely without her ball.