Friends, I thank you for all your support under my Gorgeous Penny Girl topic...I had a better day today, but suddenly have extreme guilt. I know this is part of the grieving process, but I don't know what to do...it's just building and building. If you read my other posting, I said that Penny passed away Sunday morning following getting ill Saturday afternoon. She was vomiting quite a bit, and even though I told the vet I saw mushrooms, he said the reaction wouldn't be that quick. Regardless, I've been scanning my yard like crazy, and raking leaves...anything to figure this out. Well...I'm having a really tough time with this because today I finally found something, and I'm fairly certain it was what she ate. Saturday afternoon I was grocery shopping, and I came home...let the dogs out into their pen (we have a pen directly off the deck stairs, and we have flower pots that create a "barrier" where there is a gap, so the dogs don't go in the yard). Well, on our deck there are posts, and even though there is a barrier from them getting into the yard, little Penny is skinny enough to slide through the posts on the stairs, and I knew that. When I let them out, I saw them milling around the pen, and I remembered that my ice cream was still out (i put the groceries down and let the dogs out first thing). I always stand outside with them....ALWAYS. But for some crazy reason, I figured that since they were circling to potty I could run into the house and put the ice cream in the freezer and get back outside (the slider door is off our kitchen) but Penny of course slipped through the posts and was in the yard. I've let her in the yard several times before, but I usually walk quite close next to her. I don't know what made that day any different, but I had started to trust her in the yard. She always stayed close, always came when called, and I was feeling like I had to give the dogs a little more "space". I'm always freaking out about them going 3 feet from me. So that day, I came back out on the deck, saw her milling around outside her pen, and thought, "she's a good girl, she can roam a bit". She roamed out by the trees that border our yard w/ our neighbors, and she always eats leaves and bugs, but I saw her chomping on something by the tree. I called to her to come...and she did. I told her to drop what she had in her mouth, but she chomped a bit more, but when I moved toward her, she dropped it. I remember bending down to see what it was, but it just looked like a clump of dirt, grass, and/or bark. I remember seeing a little bit of a cream or white color, but I just thought it was debris from the neighbors mowing or something.
After she got ill, I took her to the vet, and he sent me home saying I could not stay with her because he had to leave. But after he called at 9pm saying she was stabilizing, I starting thinking about what it was that made her sick. I started wondering if what she had earlier it was a rotting carcass of another animal, rotting food..or something (since the vet said it looked like toxemia which they get from rotting food). I looked and looked in the area I told her to drop it but found nothing. So I've been on a constant search. Today I believe I found it. At first it looked like a piece of cut up meat, but when I smelled it, it smelled just like a mushroom. The vet said because her body reacted so quickly, he thought it must have been something else, but perhaps she also got something bacterial. But everything I'm reading says that mushrooms can cause multisystem poisoning, shock and death. That's exactly what I believe happened.
Right now I can't stop playing over the situation in my head. I'm not certain if that was what really made her sick, but what are the odds. And everyday I had the same routine...come home, let them into the pen, they potty and back in the house. Why in the world did i take my eyes off her...even for the briefest moment. Why did I let her in the yard without me being right by her? I've never done that...NEVER. Why did I do that? And how come the first time I do, that's what happens? I can't take it. That's all I can think of. In some ways I wish I hadn't found that mushroom...or whatever it is...because then there would still be that bit of unknown. But then, if that is it, thank God I found it, because what if my other dog got it at some point. I bagged it, and will call the vet tomorrow to see if there is some possible way to test it. Either way, had I not deviated from my very set routine, things would be fine. Everyone says I can't blame myself...but come on....it's true. I was negligent, and there is a reason I had such a routine...because they can get themselves in trouble. Why on earth did I let that happen. And even when I saw her, I let her stay out in the yard for a few minutes because she was close. How will I ever get past this? How will I ever get it out of my head???????