Our dear, sweet puppy passed away this morning around six am. He was six and a half years old and very much loved by our family.
October 16th, 2003 - March 19th, 2010
We adopted Gimli in December 2003 - he was seven weeks old and could fit in our hands at the time. Of all his litter, he was the calmest when we picked him and the runt of the litter. Boy did he deceive us on both accounts. It soon became apparent that he had quite a bit of energy bundled in that tiny little package and of course he didn't stay tiny for long.
Even though he was a mini-dachshund, when he was full grown he was larger than mini-doxies were supposed to be but not fat at the time.
We found out in February 2004 that we were expecting Jadzia and eventually Gimli transferred the majority of his affection to Robby. Robby was his chosen human and they were very close.
When Robby left for Basic Training - Gimli was darn near depressed and moody but we mustered through it. While in Texas, we had three cats who Gimli loved - mostly chasing them around the apartment and playing with them. Of course the cats didn't always like his particular means of "play". But Rajah and Gimli made friends with each other.
There was never any doubt that we would bring him with us to Hawaii, even with the three month quarantine they have in place here in Hawaii. We visited him at the quarantine station as often as we could and he was well taken care of there and grew chunkier.
When the three months were up, we were thrilled to bring him home. We'd adopted Bluto a couple weeks before then and were expecting Anya a few weeks later so it was a busy start to the summer.
Gimli managed Robby's deployment better than he handled the original training but a couple months after Robby left, Gimli had severe neck pains. We went to the vet and they explained that this was an issue common in dachshunds. I don't remember what it's called, I may have blogged about it about a year ago. But they gave him anti-inflammatory medication and told us to try to keep him from jumping on furniture, rough housing with Bluto, etc. A few weeks on the meds and he was back to his old self and disgruntled that I wouldn't let him jump as much.
In August, Bluto passed away and very shortly after we got Jasper - a beagle puppy. Robby was home on leave at the time thankfully. Jasper and Gimli got along well - better than he did with Bluto I think because Jasper was never very much larger than Gimli.
A week ago, Gimli began to limp and by the following morning he was not using his back legs at all. We rushed him to the vet, who rushed us to another vet. They strongly recommended surgery to recover use of his legs. Sadly the surgery was far more than we could begin to afford so they recommended getting him a doggie wheelchair. Chances were he'd never regain back mobility but he would be able to continue leading a happy doggie life. We brought him home and started the process of getting one.
Over the course of the week, Gimli was doing fairly well considering the circumstances but he took a turn for the worse on Wednesday night. He wasn't wanting to eat or drink on his own and simply wasn't himself - even the "himself" he'd been since losing mobility. Yesterday he seemed to improve in some areas and ate and drank so we all hoped he would bounce back but as the night continued, it became clear that it was almost time. I stayed up with him snuggled with me on the couch until he quietly passed away this morning.
He was a great dog and will be sorely missed. Rest in peace puppy and say hi to Bluto for us.
