Today we said goodbye to Romeo, our Papillon. About 2 weeks ago he suddenly started tilting to the side and walking like he was drunk. We took him to the vets and they diagnosed him with Idiopathic Vestibular Disease (basically unknown cause for head tilting, etc. Most dogs recover within 1 to 3 weeks from it). However as the week passed Romeo became increasingly "out of it": shaking while walking, extreme head/body tilting, running into or getting stuck behind furniture, not being able to pass basic reflex tests, and the vet told us it was most likely something wrong in his brain, like a tumor or lesion. We didn't want him to be in pain or worse, suffer a seizure or something while we were not there, and my mom made the decision to let him go.
We only had him for a little over 3 years: he came to my mom as a "hopeless" aggression case. He was abused and then passed around from owner to owner for the first 7 years of his life, and the last person to own him (a vet tech) said there was no hope for him and he should be put down. He came to our family and became a different dog: loyal, happy and while he was not the cuddliest of dogs (he did not like to sit in your lap or be picked up) he would sit next to you and if you stopped petting him he would tap your leg or hand to tell you he wanted to be pet more. He had some episodes of aggression in the beginning but with patience and love from my mom he made a complete 180. We always called him "radar ears" because if something caught his attention his ears (which look pretty big for a dog his size) would spring up. He was crate-trained but one day my mom let him sleep in my room and after that, every morning he would be let out and run up the stairs and beg to go into my room. Romeo was a quirky, handsome, never-boring dog and even though I was only able to spend 2 years with him I will miss him more than I can put into words. (I'm having bouts of crying writing this.) He's in a better place now, free from pain and illness. He truly was one special dog.
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