07/07/2025
All of my plans went out the window today, as they often do, because of various reasons this morning, then at 12.00 on the dot, P*e Vipa called me to say Gari was very unwell, bloated, weak, white gums, barely eating. I raced straight to the shelter.
At the vets I told Dr Arm that I thought he had cancer, it's what I thought when I took him on the 1st, as his RBC had dropped from a couple of weeks before. We x-rayed him to see what was going on, but there was too much fluid to see the organs. We checked his blood and he had 15%, down another 5%+, despite doxy (even though the snap test was clear) he was on iron supplements too. His kidneys had fully recovered last time we checked, but his liver was not normal from the doxy, although not serious. Dr Arm did a centesis and rather than fluid, it was blood.
As Gari went blind recently, his quality of life had dropped, I couldn't bring him home because of the pond and pool and Kim is still homeless, so no Beehive. He had operations on his eyes for entropian problems but the operations didn't help, he had eye problem after problem over the years. He was hypothyroid and had two bouts of warts all over his face, then developed cystic acne which required opening each lump to squeeze extremely thick white paste from.
We tried so many supplements and then put him on a raw beef and lamb diet, he looked a bit better, but not very much.
We decided to anaesthetise him and open him up to see what was going on inside and if it was possible, we would operate, if not, we would put him to sleep.
I told the girls he needed to be put to sleep and Kim asked me to wait half an hour so she could come to say goodbye. I told Dr Arm to go and eat his lunch and I spent the half hour loving on him. He looked like he was done, tired, no desire to fight.
I messaged Rebecca Polzin-Ahluwalia, who had nursed him back to health with me, she adored him. I asked if she could get a moment out of work to call him and, once she'd composed herself enough, she called. She had a video chat with Gari, he seemed not to remember, but not sure whether it was his unseen pain. Bec and I reminisced about our boy then Kim arrived.
Opening him up revealed about 4 or 5 litres of blood pouring from his abdominal cavity. His spleen was FULL of tumours and then, the excruciating finding; one massive tumour had burst, the spleen like mush. The poor boy suffered in silence, he never showed any obvious signs of pain, just didn't seem right, but we couldn't find anything, despite many vet trips.
We had to let him go.
The legendary Garibaldi was 11 years old and in that time, never had a home, other than a few weeks at Kim's Bodhi Beehive.
He was dumped at the temple as a pup, at around 9-10 weeks old. He was watermelon pink, no hair, scabs all over from scratching, blood parasites and was very thin. I named him Garibaldi, because he was bald. He was one of our biggest personalities, who always dreamed of being top dog, but never made it.
You make sure you make it to Top Dog in heaven, Gazza, run free, special boy. You touched us all.
Here's a video made a few years ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hXPFdWFphsU
