I've never been a religious person but something happened this Easter.
It's now been a week that I've been making Dan tuna, scrambled egg and milk smoothies and forcing them down her throat with a syringe. She has voluntarily barely eaten a thing since last Monday.
I made an Easter Day roast chicken yesterday, and decided to make Dan a succulent chicken with gravy smoothie.
Dan had to be force fed the chicken smoothie but I noticed her licking up a few spilt drips... the fist time that had happened.
Today, as usual, Dan lay in the gardener's kitchen surrounded by her pack. I really have never seen dog behaviour like this before... they lie like this for most of the day with Dan in the middle.
The two other girls barely leave her side... and Maya has stopped playing and gone off her food.
To be honest Dan is getting much more empathy than I did after my hernia op a couple of years ago. Makes you think. I didn't even get a cup of tea.
I did notice today that Dan got up a couple of times to hobble off to the garden for a wee, and then this afternoon she ate a couple of slices of ham without being forced. She's turned her nose away from food for a week... so much so that if I left a piece of ham by her nose she would get up and move elsewhere.
And then tonight she ate a whole bowl full of pan fried salmon left over from our dinner. There was a shine in her eyes and she lay more upright and comfortably than she had all week.
Dare we hope... and to think I was considering the big trip to the vet last Friday... have to be grateful to the wife for that call.
I think there's life in the old dog yet.
Fingers crossed... it's still a worry but this will be the first good night's sleep I'll have for days.