Rest In Peace, Mufasa

RichTAkes! On Mufasa

No, not that Mufasa, Mufasa, the Lion Kingalthough my daughter did name her new German Shepard Dog puppy Mufasa when she brought him to the farm for the first year of so of his life. What the hell kind of name is Mufasa I asked, and was given the short version of the Lion King. I had somehow neglected to have watched it.

She later moved on with her ex, new husband and I didn’t see Mu for a few years. Somehow things didn’t work out after another three or four years, and my daughter and Mufasa came back. My daughter left after a few weeks, but Mu stayed on, since she couldn’t take him with her. In some kharmic way I guess, Mu was our dog now.

Mufasa was a joy to have around, he was very loyal, obeyed commands without complaint, and of course he shedded constantly. He had a half acre of fenced in playground to romp around in with our other dogs, it must have been pretty close to doggie heaven for him. After three years or more of my not having any contact with him, he recognized and remembered me instantly. He would go into extreme attack mode if he ever saw a young white male with either a shaved head or a tight crew-cut. I think he had some bad experiences with someone fitting that description during the time he was away from the farm.

I have edited a few posts I made at FaceBook concerning our experience with Mu’s case of Degenerative Myelopathy, or DM. We did not discover what his condition was until it was too late, had we recognized it earlier we might have been able to take certain steps to make things better, primarily with diet and exercise. I would advise anyone with a German Shepard Dog to at least become familiar with this disease so that you can recognize the symptoms at an earlier stage. There is a very good chance that your dog will be faced with this devastating, incurable disease one day. It is a canine version of Lou Gehreg’s disease, ALS.

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