Thor's Cherie Amour

March 14, 1998- December 23, 2006

 

Thor's Cherie Amour was the Grand Dame of our family.  She was the second Great Dane I'd owned.  Our first, Lena died at three months of age, at just about the point when we had really grown attached to her.  The day after Lena died, I resolved to get another Great Dane.  A family in Olathe, Kansas had just moved to Kansas City from Minnesota and had a litter of Harlequin pups.  My Son, Justin and I drove out to Olathe and took a look at these pups.  The lady had all of the pups out in the front yard playing, and I sat down in the midst of the pups to see if I could pick one that I liked.  They were all beautiful kids, and choosing one was very difficult.  I sat there for a long time trying to choose.  Finally, one pup chose me instead.  This beautiful little Harlequin girl came up to me, looked me in the eye, and then promptly crawled up in my lap, curled up and went to sleep, as though she was sitting in God's pocket, safe and content.  How could I resist?  I spent my entire week's paycheck to buy her, and took her home.

 

Choosing a name was not too difficult.  She followed me everywhere, and until I settled on a name, I just called her "girl friend".  Then it came to me, that old Stevie Wonder song, My Cherie Amour.  Translated from French, Cherie Amour meant "Girl Friend", which is exactly what I had been calling her, so Cherie Amour became her name.  My Cherie Amour.  When she was a pup, I worked as a field tech for a company, and my job entailed lots of driving around from location to location.  Cherie went with me everywhere.  I drove a mini-van, and Cherie would ride perched in the passenger seat and look out the window, watching the world go by.  At the end of each day's journey, I would stop at McDonalds and buy her a cheeseburger (no onion, no pickle or ketchup).  The McDonald's lady anticipated our visit each day, and always had Cherie's special cheeseburger ready for us as soon as we pulled in.

 

As time passed, we got Cherie a new boyfriend, our Wulf.  In the beginning, Cherie treated Wulf like an annoying little brother.  However, when Wulf grew into adulthood, Cherie saw him in a new light, and they became mates.  As time passed, Cherie gave birth to six litters, of which 36 pups survived.  Our Odin was her first-born son, and we kept him.  He had lots of Cherie's great traits, and he grew into a fine young man.  Odin and Saga, his mate, went on to produce some of the finest Great Dane pups that ever walked on four legs.  Cherie's granddaughter Leysa, has begun carrying on that legacy.

 

Cherie loved motherhood, and always doted on her babies, constantly fretting over each one like an old mother hen.  Eventually, she reached an age where she could no longer have babies.  Not long ago, both Saga and Leysa became pregnant at the same time.  Cherie wanted to have babies too, and felt left out.  She went into a false pregnancy, because she believed that she was pregnant too, even though she really wasn't.  Her hormones were triggered, and her breasts filled up with milk and her vulva enlarged, as though she really was pregnant.  However, these raging hormones became troublesome, and one of her tits became grossly enlarged.  We figured that it was mastitis; an infection caused by a lactating female not being able to nurse properly, and began antibiotics to fix it.  The antibiotics did not seem to help.  The doc lanced the tit, in order to drain the fluid off.  He also took a sample to have tested to see what sort of infection we were dealing with.  It turned out that she had a zero bacteria growth, which meant we were not dealing with a normal infection, and the problem was more likely breast cancer.

 

Yesterday, we took Cherie into the doc to have a mastectomy performed to remove the breast before any cancer could spread.  The surgery went well, but unfortunately, Cherie's blood wouldn't coagulate properly, and the doc could not get the bleeding to stop.  If she survived the night, we planned to take her Son, Odin to do a blood transfusion from Odin to Cherie, in an effort to get her blood to clot.  During the night early this morning, Cherie died alone in the hospital.  Words cannot convey how crushed I was at the news that we'd lost our Cherie Amour.  Cherie was almost nine years old, and I know that she couldn't have lived much longer anyway, but I was not prepared to say goodbye to my old friend yet either.  Her death just two days before Christmas was especially tough, although anytime would have been just as hard for me.  I have lost my Queen!

 

I can honestly say that not once in all our years together, have I ever had a single reason to complain about Cherie.  She was the perfect dog.  She adored people, and got along great with other animals.  She never caused us problems at all, and was deeply loved by our family, especially by me.  Cherie is gone, but her legacy lives on in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  I shall never forget my Cherie Amour, and I have no doubt that everytime I hear that old song, I will shed some tears for my girl.  To say that she will be missed is a huge understatement.

 

Cherie, we loved you like no other, and will never forget the joy you gave us.  May God give you comfort and hold you in his arms until we can be together again.  Thank you for being you.  Farewell old friend, and Godspeed!

 

 

 

 

Click Here To See More Photos Of Cherie

 

De le Rose Danes

Terry D. Janes, Owner-Breeder

7628 East 52nd Street

Kansas City, Missouri 64129

816-923-3641

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