[pyrnet] Good-bye to our precious Ivy

[Shirley McGreal <smcgreal@ippl.org>]

I bring you sad news from Summerville, South Carolina. We lost our 
wonderful, precious Ivy tonight. She was ten years and ten months 
old. Ivy was born on 29 November 1994 and came to us at IPPL when she 
was three years old. She had received her Certificate of Longevity 
from GPCA earlier this year. and we were so proud of her. She had 
slowed down in recent years and had been treated for Lyme disease and 
was under care for arthritis. Her August 2005 geriatric blood panel 
scores were all over the place. She stayed in our animal care cottage 
till about 7.30 p.m. tonight with North and Bullet and I went to 
collect the trio after the animal care staff had left. The three came 
out, they usually take a few minutes and make bathroom stops on the 
way between the buildings. I noticed that Ivy was walking slowly. I 
went through the office (where I live) to open the atrium sliding 
door which is the door Ivy usually used at nights, but not always. 
She didn't show up at this door, so a few minutes later I went to see 
if she was at the loading dock door. She was lying there, looking 
just like she was napping, but in fact our gentle Ivy had passed on. 
She looked very peaceful and there was no blood or injury and I had 
heard no distress sounds. The staff reported that she ate and drank 
normally today and that she dozed on the cottage cot, her favorite 
place. Of course she was slowing down and was on medication (adequan 
shots and derramax). Her geriatric panel in August had shown many 
problematic scores. I think she died of old age, but am not sure. She 
left us so gently - she was a perfect dog and deserved a peaceful 
ending to her life.

Although born into a show family, Ivy didn't like the show ring and 
her owner (Nancy Sandoval) had her spayed and offered to send her to 
live with us after our first Great Pyrenees, Sebastien, passed on. 
Nancy invited me to Gwynn Oak in Maryland to meet Ivy. I deliberately 
took no crate as I did not want to make a hasty decision! But Ivy 
jumped up (oddly, the only time she ever did this, she was not a 
jumper, I guess she knew she had to make a good impression). So I 
said yes, called the airline to reserve a crate and we put Ivy and a 
lot of used sheets in the back of my rental care. I stopped in a 
wayside park - but she produced nothing! By the time we got to the 
National Airport in Washington, she had made a puddle on the back 
seat of the car, so I went into the parking lot, took her to the 
airline, bought the crate, and checked her in. Then I went to clear 
up the mess and go to the rental care return. To my horror I had lost 
my parking ticket, but the attendant let me through. When I got to 
the car rental return area, nobody noticed a problem and we made our 
non-stop flight home to Charleston to be met by a greeting party of 
all my staff.

Ivy was a truly amazing girl. Though she never had puppies, she 
became the loving mother and companion to our blind dog Bullet who 
would follow her all round the property. I know he'll miss his 
companion of so many years, but fortunately he likes Northie and our 
new rescue Pyr girl Zoe (who we had to keep far from Ivy due to a 
personality conflict).

So tonight is a very sad night here. I cut off a snippet of Ivy's 
hair and put it in her "personal file" that we keep for all our dogs. 
Good bye, dearest Ivy, you with the most lustrous brown eyes I ever 
saw, till we meet again.

Shirley McGreal


Dr. Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman
International Primate Protection League
PO Box 766
Summerville, SC 29484, USA
Phone - 843-871-2280, Fax- 843-871-7988

E-mail - smcgreal@ippl.org, Web: www.ippl.org
Working to Protect All Primates Since 1973
Save the date for our next Members' Meeting: March 24-26, 2006!

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly 
making exciting discoveries. ~ AA Milne