We bought a Shih-Tzu in July. For some reason, from the very beginning, this guy held something special for me. The breeder was my husband's ex -wife's mother in law. She would bring the puppies to functions where my step kids participated. There were four pups in all. Linus however caught my heart right away. He was black and the others were multi-colored. He looked like what a baby big foot might look like.

Several weeks went by and there were only two puppies in the batch left. My step kids and I finally talked my husband into the black one (later named Linus). For a few weeks, Linus seemed to be a normal puppy with energy and lots of love. After 5 weeks had passed, we noticed that he seemed extremely sleepy. We also noticed his breath had a very strange odor. We took him in for his next series of vaccinations and while the vet administered the vaccinations, we told her of his sleepiness and breath odor. She had mentioned that he hadn't gained any weight in the 5 weeks that we'd had him. She told us that she wanted to test for POLYCYSTIC KIDNEY DISEASE. I had never heard of this before and asked if it was a treatable condition. She replied that it was not and discribe it as an irreversable disease that Linus would die from. She did say that she'd only had 1 case in her 22 years of practice. She scheduled the tests to be done the next day. I went home and looked online and found that indeed PKD is a deadly disease. I also read the symptoms and counted that Linus had 4 out of the 6 listed.

The vet called the next day several hours after testing had been completed. She wanted to speak with me in person. I knew at this point what the results were. The vet (who I have to say was very kind in such a sad situation)told us that Linus in fact had PKD and that it would be up to my husband and I to decide when "the time" would come. That was on a Thursday and by Saturday morning, the time had come. THe vet said it was probably because his sick little body could not handle the vaccinations which she had administered (not knowing at the time that he had symptoms of PKD). An actual blessing in disguise. I would not have wanted to go months with know that eventually, he would get more and more ill.

We took him to the vet on Saturday morning with my two step children who were heartbroken. I held him while the injection was administered and he fell asleep in my arms. We brought him home and burried him in our back yard in a wooden box that we'd had made when we were told of his condition.

I can easily say that this has been the second hardest thing I've ever gone through. I feel like I have lost a child. We only had Linus for 5 short weeks but we will always love him. His sweet face will be in my heart for as long as I live.