El Jefe

El Jefe was the first dog that Miss Fluffy and I owned. I bought him for her as a gift. He's a rescued dog ... he had been abandoned with one of his litter-mates, if I remember correctly. Jefe is stone deaf.

I never can remember how old Jefe is, but he's been with us though 2 apartments, our first house and now here on the farm in Kentuckistan.

Jefe has always been a typical Dalmatian ... stubborn, very smart and high-energy. Our two Dals have always expressed feelings and moods to a greater extent than I would have ever expected from an animal. I imagine I'm like most dog owners, in that I've had some times when I'd have gladly killed Jefe with my own hands, and other times when I've loved him so much it brought me to tears.

Jefe has been losing weight over the past several months and had become anemic. We couldn't reverse his weight loss regardless of what we fed him, and our vet couldn't seem to figure out what was going on.

Our vet took an x-ray yesterday and found Jefe's abdominal cavity filled with fluid, which turned out to be blood. He was hemorrhaging ... from somewhere. The abdominal cavity should be clear on the x-ray, but the mass and the blood causes it to be whited-out.


He removed Jefe's spleen this morning, and found a very large tumor. We don't know if it's malignant, or if it is, if the cancer has spread.


Our vet has told us we can expect Jefe to live 6 to 8 more months.

I'm fighting back tears as I type this. When Jefe dies, I will weep openly and bitterly.

There. That's all the anticipatory grieving I'm going to allow myself.

We'll pick him up from the vet tomorrow and we'll spoil him as long as he continues living.