Goodbye

Max Cornish
18th April 1992 - 27th January 2008

A true gentleman who will be dearly missed by all who loved him

East Runton

Max managed a five minute walk on the beach on Sunday. Well, more of a five minute stand, looking at the sea and then a bit of a sniff of the sea defence.

Good days and bad days

It seems like a lifetime ago that we used to go over to the field at lunchtimes and walk right the way around the edge two or three times. In fact it was only about 6 weeks ago. If at that time Max had only wanted to walk round the block it would have been a bad day. Today that was just what he did but it was a good day as it's the furthest he has wanted to walk in weeks.
It was nice and sunny today, not as cold as it has been, and Simon was off work so he could join us and I think the combination of all these things made Max a little bit happier.
The lump is more or less football sized now and I don't take Max out for walks without his coat on as I do not want people to see. I am worried people will think he is suffering and that I am letting it happen. I know Max better than anyone and I don't think he is suffering. I like to think I will know when he is. I hope I do.
Max is still eating like a horse and since he has been on the pain killers he has been holding his ears up like he used to so you can see how big they are.
Today is a good day, and I hope there are more....

Big ears in Stratford-upon-Avon, November 2003

The wonders of home cooking

Max is now on pain killers to make him more comfortable and is enjoying some home cooking. After battling with him to eat different dog foods and trying to make him take his various vitamins I have given up and decided to make his last days as enjoyable as possible with some really tasty food. He is eating better than we are!
On the menu for this week is my own chicken broth with carrots, swede and peas and Tesco finest Aberdeen Angus sausages with cauliflower and broccoli with either rice or potatoes. He definitely seems to have perked up and regained some of his strength although he is still not really interested in walking further than the end of our street.
He is also quite disruptive during the night pacing up and down. I think this is mainly due to the fact that he can only really sleep on one side and gets frustrated when he can not turn over.
I've been trawling through old photos of Max with a view to getting together an album of his adventures and I came across some that I had forgotten about and this one in particular made me laugh.



This photo was taken in July 2004 when we had a long weekend in Bath. We were allowed to take Max on the sightseeing tour of the city but he was more interested in snoozing in the sun than seeing the sights. So many happy memories and so many of them make me laugh too.

Happy new year!

Scamp the Yorkie joined Max for Christmas this year as his elderly owner had to spend the festive season in hospital following a fall. Despite Max being very poorly over the Christmas holidays he welcomed Scamp into his home but I think he was quite glad to see the back of him when he left just before the new year.

Trouble walking

Max had been doing so well but for the past few days he has been really struggling. This seems to have coincided with the rapid drop in temperature so I wonder if this is connected. He has been wearing his nice warm jumper and cuddling up to his snugglesafe and we have been doing physio as often as we can. I am also making sure he stretches his legs regularly too and we have a couple of short walks a day.
He also has a very large lump on his side which the vet described last week as sinister. It started off as a small fatty lump and the vet checked it out as soon as we found it and said it was nothing to worry about. It has grown rapidly though and is now very hard. It's all been making me think that Max may not be around for much longer so I am cherishing every day.

Feeling frisky

Max enjoying his ball on rope over at the rec yesterday lunchtime.