She was the bestest girl

These are propably the only two pictures that exists of this girl. And she was the best girl you can imagine. She's been gone 25 years now but a pretty awesome thing happened with her back then and more people should know. If you can't be bothered reading this whole thing, I'll leave a TL;DR at the bottom. Or just scroll by. There's bound to be better pictures of other lovely dogs.

Anyway - she was my grandfather's dog. He bought her somewhere and she was a grown dog already. Someone had taught her how to walk with a leash, to sit - stuff like that. The cheap old git never bothered having her spayed (neutered? I don't know), so she had two litters of the cutest, little puppies. 17 of them. 7 for her first go and 10 the second time around. I was like 10 or 11 when she had the second litter and it was at my granddads place. She was so happy to see us, so she would run around, pop out another pup and run some more. My parents put her in the shed to have some peace.

My granddad was old and passed away. And none of my father's 8 siblings wanted the dog. I don't really think my parents did either, but they ended up taking her. We all loved that dog. She was not very bright, but she was kind and fun. She moved in with us. I was 12; 35 years ago now. And it's one of the first decisions I made that was responsible - I would walk her. Every day. And I did. Every day I'd come home from school, rattle her chain a bit and she'd come running through the house. The first part of the trip, she absolutely HAD to hold the leash herself.

We walked more or less the same way every day. There was this small stream and we'd follow it and she would dig up rats. She'd spend hours digging for those buggers. And she didn't have to cross the roads; she could run under a passage under the roads and just jump up like a meter or so.

Come rain, shine or cold, I walked her. Froze the skin of one of my ears once while walking her. She didn't care how cold it was; sometimes she'd kind of jump on the ice on that little stream to break it and come home with icycles hanging from her belly.

Of course, she grew older. We didn't know exactly how old she was when my granddad got her. Time didn't slow, though. And the day came, she could no longer do the jump under the roads. I started walking the other way round. Then she could jump down instead. She could and would still run around with the other dogs we met, but now they would outrun her. She'd be tired first.

Still, we walked. Every day we walked. And she grew older. Her legs got more stiff. The day came, she could now longer do the jump down under the roads in the passages. So I started walking her across the street. She was still lovely. Hard of hearing, but the kindest, happiest dog.

It must have been around the time I moved away from home at 18 my dad deciced it was time. She could no longer even get in the car herself. At times, her legs even hurt. He was right. It was time. I can't imagine how hard it must have been. So, he took her to the vet.

The thing about my dad is; he could talk to anyone. And he did. The kind of man anyone took an instant liking to. So sitting there at the vet, he kind of fell into a conversation with someone. Who told him the same thing had happened to their dog and they had added something to the dogs food and it had gotten better. My dad, bless his kind soul, cancelled the vet, took our dog back home and tried out the stuff.

It. Was. A. Miracle. A few days later, she'd jump the meter high ledge again. She ran around like she was a teenager. She was still hard of hearing, if not already deaf, but she would RUN. The joy and sheer life of her. It was a miracle.

And it kept going! Sometimes we'd forget and in a few days her legs would get stiff again, but then we remembered and she was fine. It was awesome. She must have been like 12 or 13 at the time. Old age for a lab, but she really was so energized again. She ended up living til she was 16 or 17. In the end, even that stuff couldn't keep her going, but it gave her years. I've told other people with old dogs to try it too, and I know it has helped some of them as well.

Now, here's the kicker - I only know what it's called in my language, but I've tried finding the name in English. Trace mineral. I've found a few product names too (just to be sure; I'm not associated with any of them in any way). One is called Vital-Animin. Another is from Vita-petz. I have no idea if one is better than the other. I just know what it did to our dog.

TL:DR: Dog got old. Was about to be put down. My parents fed her miracle stuff. Miracle. She lived a long time after that. Stuff is trace minerals.