Noah's Ark volunteers have been waiting with bated breath for the family of Snoopy to contact us. Finally last weekend they did!
Snoopy's owner had been transferred to the hospice and the hospice had agreed to have Snoopy visit. According to the nurses and care-givers at the hospice, the owner talked about Snoopy everyday from the time she had checked in.
We arranged to have Snoopy groomed his best and brought him to the hospice to visit her on Tuesday. Snoopy took a few minutes to recognize his owner, as it had been more than a month since he last saw her.
Snoopy's owner was delighted to see him. According to the nurses, she spent most of her days sleeping as she got weaker by the day. However on Tuesday when Snoopy visited, she actually sat up in bed and patted him for close to 2 hours and continuously whispered his name.
Snoopy somehow knew what he had to do and he lay close to her for 2 hours, just being there for her. When it was time to go, Snoopy's owner whispered that she wanted to see him again. She no longer had the energy to speak up clearly.
We promised we would take time off from work to bring Snoopy to visit her again on Friday. We then took Snoopy back to the pet hotel.
The next day we received a call from relatives that Snoopy's owner had suddenly take a turn for the worse and the family was coming down from KL to be with her. Immediately we arranged for Snoopy to visit her again as we knew it couldn't wait till Friday as planned.
Snoopy visited his owner again on Thursday. Unfortunately on this visit, his owner was already in a semi conscious state. Despite this, we lay Snoopy next to her and the hospice was kind enough to allow Snoopy to spend the night with his owner.
Snoopy spent the entire night lying beside his owner - although she was in a semi conscious state, we're sure she knew he was there beside her, keeping her company and being there for each other.
We put her hand on him as he lay quietly beside her. Snoopy was supposed to spend another night with his owner at the hospice, keeping her company in her final moments, but unfortunately just before lunch time today, we received a call from relatives that Snoopy's owner had passed on.
Snoopy will be taken back to the pet hotel for a few days while the family makes funeral arrangements and settle personal matters.
We are glad that we had the opportunity to take Snoopy to visit his owner twice and that Snoopy was able to be with her in her final moments.
We didn't have the pleasure of knowing Snoopy's owner, except on our visits this week but we know that she had talked about Noah's Ark constantly when she was well and that was why the family contacted Noah's Ark when she fell ill.
Her family told us that Snoopy was her life and one can only assume that after Snoopy visited her, she was assured that he was loved and in good hands. We feel touched that Snoopy was able to spend some time with her.
We wanted very much to do this for Snoopy and his owner. We know she left us peacefully and she knows that we will take good care of little Snoopy.
May she rest in peace.
See also "NA Rescue - Silky Terrier ".
** Photo by kind courtesy of Nicholas Lee.
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