Tribute to a Rescue Dog
On October 9th, 2018 my wife, Tara, and I had to make the hardest decision any dog parent ever has to make. We had to help our beloved dog, Sammy, leave this life at only age 5–1/2 years.
I know the pain I feel now will probably never go away completely, but in time it will ease then fade to a dull, distant ache. Where thinking of Sammy now brings tears, some day those thoughts will bring a smile to my face for having had the honor of knowing, loving, and being loved by such a wonderful creature. I am not despairing, but I am grieving.
“Not all tears are an evil”. — Gandalf, Lord of the Rings
I am sharing this process publicly for two reasons. First, in a world gone mad and divided by our perception of political differences, I hope that some “realness” will remind folks that love is important. We all feel love and loss. Second, I also hope that in some way this helps animal welfare causes and dog rescue. We must do better in our treatment of animals and there are so, so many “Sammies” sitting in shelters right now or will be in the future.
About Sammy
We adopted Sammy in 2014. He was supposed to be a foster for a few weeks at most. This was before my wife and I were married. She told me on the phone the day she got Yogi Bear (his name at the time), “You have to come meet my new foster. You’re going to fall in love with this one”. They were calling him “Yogi Bear” at the shelter but we knew that wasn’t his name.
The first time I laid eyes on him, I walked out on the back deck and it was instant love. Sammy just had a way about him. The way he bounced, the twinkle in his eyes that never left until 2–3 days before we said goodbye (that’s how we knew it was time).
As soon as he saw me, he ran up to me, his stumpy, cropped tail wagging as fast as it could go. I thought it might lift him off of the ground like a propeller. Tara asked, “What should we name him” and — no kidding — at the exact same time we both said, “Sammy”. That was it. He was from then on, Sammy.
And he WAS a Sammy. It fit him perfectly. We knew Sammy had been abused. The cropped tail wasn’t surgically cropped, it had been broken off. He had deep scars on his head. He was also afraid of nearly everyone and whenever we walked him, he literally leaned against my leg to be in constant contact. He couldn’t relax in public unless his back was against a wall so nobody could come up behind him.
Sammy was not house-trained when we got him, even at 18 months. We noticed he would drink two entire bowls of water at a time. We knew something was wrong so we took him to the vet thinking he had a urinary tract infection. We were right about the urinary tract infection (UTI), but we also learned that he had congenital bilateral renal dysplasia. An ultrasound showed his kidneys were not fully-formed. Blood tests confirmed that Sammy was Stage 3 Kidney Disease.
Sammy Joins Our Pack
I told Tara, “I want to adopt him. If he is going to have a short life, I want to be the one to spend it giving him as much love in his short years as he would otherwise get in a full life. I also want to be the one to care for him when he is sick. I don’t want to let anyone else do that for him”. I told Tara that I would adopt him myself if she did not. We agreed to adopt him together despite already having 3 dogs of our own.
When we adopted Sammy, his vet and we thought that he would have about six months to live. As painful as that prospect was, we put it out of our minds and Tara started doing research and reading everything she could find on canine kidney disease. We put together a clean protein diet with dehydrated dog food from The Honest Kitchen. We put him on daily salmon oil for his coat and added kidney health. We made sure he got plenty of water and plenty of exercise. And we showered him with love.
I am 100% confident that we filled Sammy’s 5–1/2 years with a lifetime of love. He KNEW he was loved and he gave so much more in return. Over the 4 years we had him, he grew from a very scared dog who didn’t like to go for walks or meet strangers, to a loving dog whom everyone fell in love with. He was SO, SO gentle. Even when he would take treats from your hand, he never once even nicked me with his teeth. It was always so soft and gentle.
The Perfect Dog
Sammy was always happy. I never saw him get in a fight with any of the other dogs in our pack. When we first got him he played ALL the time. And since he had short, stumpy legs, he kind of bounced everywhere he went. We called him our “Spring-loaded dog” and our “cartoon dog” because that is what he was.
Sammy was everything you could want in a dog. He was loyal. He loved fully and unconditionally. He was always happy. He loved more than anything to go for runs with me. And he was a great running partner. He set a pace and never fluctuated and he ran in a perfectly straight line. He would never deviate to chase a squirrel or smell a tree. When we passed other people he mostly ignored them and just ran, huge smile on his face. And he was adamant about running on the sidewalk. If we occasionally steered him to the shoulder of the road to pass other people, he immediately got back on the sidewalk once they passed.
One amusing thing was Sammy knew where to turn to go home at the end of our runs. Even when I would test him and try to steer him a different direction, he would insistently pull me in the direction of home. He would also speed up on the last 3–4 blocks. We called this the “Sammy effect”.
Sammy Shows His Love
I loved being with my buddy. I am not the most patient person. I am selfish with my time and my attention. But with Sammy, I always had time. Something always told me, “Be there for him”. I only ever got mad at Sammy and yelled at him twice. The first time was, in retrospect, hilarious and is one of Tara’s and my favorite memories.
For my 45th birthday, Tara took me on a surprise trip to Nicaragua. We had had Sammy for about 6 months at that point and he and I were fully bonded. We had never been apart and never left him at a kennel. We left him at the kennel for about 5 days. When we picked him up, he had shed most of his fur from the separation anxiety but he was ecstatic to see us. He ran up to me and nuzzled me with his head. And proceeded to pee on my leg. And not just a little. I was wearing jeans and tennis shoes and he soaked my trouser leg and filled my shoe with his pee. So much so it squished when I walked.
I was SOOO mad. And my loving wife LAUGHED HER ASS OFF at me. I was really mad and saying, “Now I’ll have to throw my shoes away”. She turned her head to the passenger side window and tried to stifle her laughter.
I regret getting angry at Sammy. He was telling me he loved me and he was upset at being left in a strange place. He never had any more issues with the kennel because he grew to trust that we would be back.
Dog of Many Names
We humans like to give nicknames to those we love. And if the number of nicknames is a measure of our love, then Sammy was very, very loved. In total he had 27 nicknames. I won’t list them all but my favorite is the name of this blog: Big Head. We called him Big Head because he had a HUGE noggin.
On a long drive once, Tara and I decided Sammy‘s alter-ego was a Mexican Wrestler. His name was “El Schmammito del Cabeza Grande”. If you knew Sammy, you’d know it fit him absolutely perfectly.
My wife’s favorite nickname for Sammy was “Doodlebug” and it fit.
Among some of the others were: Pork chop (his ears were thick and shaped like pork chops), stumpy because of his stumpy tail and short legs, spam-bot, Sam Sam, Sams-a-lot, Diplomat, and Bam Bam.
Sammy the Fighter
As I stated before, we believed Sammy would live for 6 months, but he proved to be fighter. He loved being alive and was one of the happiest creatures I have ever met.
Sammy’s vet liked to say, “On paper, Sammy is very sick, but Sammy doesn’t know that”. And you wouldn’t have known it either except for the belly band (doggie diaper) he wore for the first 6 months we had him until he learned to let us know he needed to go out.
As a result of my wife’s amazing work with him, Sammy’s blood levels improved dramatically. Instead of the 6 months we originally believed, he was happy and healthy for 3–1/2 years. He played, did daily zoomies, snoozed on my lap despite being nearly 70 pounds, ran, and brought amazing joy to our pack and our home.
He was my best friend, and I was his. I work from home and we spent every day of his life together. He ran with me. He rode with me to the store. He even followed me to the toilet. And he slept on a doggie bed next to my desk in my home office while I worked.
Sammy Isn’t Feeling Well
About 6 months before he passed, Sammy started to throw up a lot. When we took him to the vet to have his blood levels checked, our worst fear was confirmed. Sammy’s creatinine level had gone up significantly and he was officially in Stage 4 kidney disease. His kidney function was below 25% and he was in the beginning stages of kidney failure. Sammy was terminal.
When my wife gave me the news, I wept.
We were determined to do everything we could to slow the progress. We started doing subcutaneous fluids every other day, added an anti-nausea medicine to his daily routine.
About 4 months into Stage 4, Sammy stopped eating. I wept regularly during this time because I knew what this meant. We could perhaps slow the pace, but the end was getting nearer. We tried every kind of food we could and for a while he would eat, albeit not enough and very selectively. We sometimes had to force-feed him the first bite.
Please forgive me, but I don’t want to recount the details from this point because, frankly, it is still too painful for me. The last 2 months of Sammy’s life were extremely difficult for him and for us.
Time to Say Goodbye
We had hoped Sammy would make it until the end of 2018, but as he grew sicker, we realized this was not going to happen. My wife and I had heart-wrenching conversations, cried a lot, and finally decided it was time. The sparkle was gone from Sammy’s eyes. He no longer bounced when he walked. He even struggled to walk and we had to carry him up and down steps. He stopped eating completely.
We decided on the actual day to take him to the vet, but we wanted to share some more special time with our buddy. We took turns sitting with him with his head in our laps on our sofa. We brushed him, took a clipping of his fur, a paw print, and took him for one last walk.
When the actual time came, our vet was kind enough to help Sammy pass outside, on a blanket on the grass under some trees.
Sammy died with his head in my lap — his favorite place to be, and mine. I wept harder than I have in many, many years.
Sammy was my best friend. I loved him like a brother or a child, not like a pet. He was my heart dog and we had a bond I have never had with any creature — human or dog.
Sweet Memories
Losing Sammy is hard. It hurts as much as losing a family member because he was a family member. But there are so many thousands of beautiful memories with Sammy that I will always have. He brought so much joy, and love, and healing into my life. He expanded my ability to love others by just being himself.
R.I.P. little buddy. Maybe I will see you again one day.
