We had to put Aster to sleep this afternoon, December 5,
1999 --she went to sleep peacefully at around 14:50 PST.

After being diagnozed with cancer a couple of months ago she
deteriorated rapidly --and I retired her November 28, 1999,
when she went to stay with my friend Bernardo and his
family.  She was with me for a total of 3,616 days --out of
which she worked 3,529 days; --the remaining 87 days added
up to the three trips to India that I took during the ten
years I had Aster.

I was hoping that she would have a few months of happy
pet-dog life --but she lasted only a week before it became
obvious that the right thing to do was to give her a
peaceful exit.  During her final week, she had stopped eating
almost completely --and was only drinking a little bit of water--
she started passing out blood in her stools Saturday
December 4, and it almost looked like she wouldn't wake up
this morning --December 5.

She finally woke up around 9:00am and looked alert; however
she still refused food and this was when I decided that her
time had come.  The weather was beautiful today --and we
took her out to the park with Bernardo's famly --while the
kids and Bernardo's dog played, Aster lay comfortably in the
sun for most of the afternoon.  We took her for a couple of
walks around the park and she had a fun time sniffing
everything --the tail was still wagging until  the end.

 We came back from the park around 2:00 --we had already set
the appointment at the hospital for 14:30.
We took her in and the end was quick and peaceful. She
passed away lying on my lap --after the injection was
administered she breathed deeply twice and was gone.



Sun Dec  5 15:33:37 PST 1999