Tiny, beloved canine friend of everyone at the Brooklyn Tavern, and anyone he ever met, died unexpectedly Wednesday, January 12th, 2005. Following is information regarding his demise.

Wednesday morning Tiny seemed fine- he went out to "woof" the horses as usual, a funny little something he did- he would "sneak" up on the horses in the pasture (do you think they couldn't see all 190 pounds of him?) and then give them one or two big "woofs"- maybe just to let them know who was boss. He didn't seem as if he was in any distress of any kind.

About 3:00, I (Janice) was upstairs in the house when I thought I heard Huck whining to get in, but when I opened the door, Huck wasn't there, so I went downstairs to the garage to see who was whining. Tiny was laying on one of his beds, and was whining just a little, at the end of every breath- I got him to get up, but he just walked over to another bed and laid down. I talked to him, his nose was wet, but he didn't seem quite right- so I went and told Ray, who went out to see Tiny. He got Tiny to get up and go outside, but Tiny wasn't wagging his tail or bouncing like usual, he headed for his kennel and the loveseat we had in it for him.

We called the vet immediately, I was afraid maybe he had salmon sickness, although he wasn't really acting like that was the problem, I know, because I've seen it before. We had him to the vet by 4:30, and the vet said he was bleeding rectally, which indicated a ruptured intestine, but he couldn't tell at that point WHY that might be the case. He asked if we gave Tiny bones, and we said no, but of course, he could have gotten into a rotten salmon and ate bones, or deer bones, or who knows what else on the farm. Tiny didn't even have a fever at that point. The vet gave Tiny some pain medication and antibiotics and said he wanted to keep him overnight awaiting blood test returns the next day.

The vet called early Thursday morning to tell us Tiny hadn't survived the night. His bloodwork indicated possible diabetes, and also a liver problem, but at that point, he couldn't say for positive what killed him, so we asked him to do an autopsy, which he did, and found "mesenteric torsion". This means, his intestine had twisted somehow, cutting off blood supply to the intestines, in Tiny's case, both the small and large one, which then released toxins and chemicals which was the ultimate cause of death. He said based on what he saw, there would not have been anything anyone could have done differently, as both intestines probably had already been massively affected by the time Tiny even started showing discomfort. The twisting of the intestine is usually done by a trauma of some sort, such as "jumping into a vehicle, missing, falling down, and jumping up again", but since Tiny had not been in any vehicles for at least 3 days, it would have happened some other way. It could have happened when he jumped onto his loveseat in the kennel, or even maybe when he was laying on his back in his "yoga" pose" like he liked to do, he could have heard a noise, and flipped over too fast to get up, or who knows what?

Heartbroken as I am, as we all are, over this sudden unexpected death of our good friend, I try and find comfort in two things; the first, is that he was so loved and had so much attention showered on him both at the tavern and at home (spoiled rotten!), and second, he was getting fairly old for a huge breed (Great Danes usually don't live past 7-8 years old, I don't know about St. Bernards), and at least now he won't have to face the pain and suffering of arthritis (which he was already on Move Free for) and all the other maladies a dog his size would eventually have suffered with old age.

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