Sunday afternoon we had to euthanize our 17 year old dog Chase. Chase was about a year old when we adopted him from a rescue group. We had been looking for a small dog that wasn't a beagle. Around here, the small dogs are hard to find. If you want an old hunting dog or a pit bull, there are lots to chose from. A rescue group called SHARE had several dogs in crates outside a Pet Smart. I was the scout and went alone to check out the dogs because I didn't want our kids to fall in love with a big dog. I first walked right past Chase because I thought he was a golden retriever puppy, and we didn't want a dog that big. When I talked to the lady in charge, though, she told me he was fully grown at about 25 lbs. I called the rest of my family to come and see him. There was another couple interested in him, but when they saw our boys with him, they decided we could give him a better home than they could.
Chase was supposed to belong to our second grader who had lobbied hard for a dog. But as any parent knows, most of the responsibility for pet care and all of the expense falls to the adults in the family. Chase soon became my dog. I was the one who cleaned up after him, took him to obedience classes, fed him and walked him. He was my shadow during the day when the kids were at school. We walked two miles most mornings. He was the reason I walked when it was cold out. He was the reason I got up early in the summer before it got too hot to walk. Chase used to do a little dance when I got the leash out: he was always ready to go!
Chase was pretty healthy most of his life, but about age 14 he developed heart disease and high blood pressure, which was controlled with 3 medications. This summer he tore his cornea, which meant eye drops for two months and an operation to sew his eye shut. Chase's illnesses didn't slow him down much at first, but towards the end of his life, he only walked about a block at a time. He still did his dance when I got the leash, but he was slow.
A month ago, Chase's mouth started to swell. The vet assumed it was an infected tooth. When I took him in for a cleaning and tooth extraction, they found melanoma in all 4 quadrants of his mouth. Sunday morning, it was obvious he was in pain, so we called a vet who came to our house and put him down.
I miss him terribly. Intellectually, I know he is gone, but I still find myself getting ready to feed him or let him out. Chase will be our last dog.
