Sweet boy,

There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of you and miss you.  You little sister is doing her best to keep me sane, but it's a difficult job and she only has SO much cute...

You know, there's a huge rope next to us, but you have the toy I want.

There's a song that was released just about 2 weeks before you passed and I hadn't actually heard it until after that.  The song is written and performed by Toby Keith.  I know that you had been subjected to many of his songs at home and in various vehicles, but this has a different sound as he is singing about a close friend of his who has recently passed away.  I'm sure that the reasoning makes sense now. 

Some lawyer may well provide a cease and desist for relating my dog to this song, though I'd expect the artists involved and folks related to the song would understand the sentiment.

To this day, hearing this song brings me back to that last day and breaks me down in every way.  Sometimes humanity sucks.

Until...

One Year

One year.

Twelve months.

Trudging along.  Zuki doing her damnedest to console me all while waiting for your return.  I was wishing for it, too.

I miss my boy.

Defining adorable

Normal bloggers tend to start a post that is titled with some form of "definition" with a link to or excerpt from some dictionary in an effort to display the diverging idea they had in mind and their verbal prowess (irony is not lost here).  However, we all know what adorable means.  And we've all heard some form of the phrase "if you look up the defintion of X you'll see a picture of Y". 

Well X = "adorable" and Y=

Daed, however, didn't just define the term, he knew how to make you feel it.  There was never a time in which I could look at him, including now, and not have a smile on my face and that warm, squishy feeling in my chest.

Of course the little monster did wreak some havoc on my house. In this post there are three pictures of him (or soon shall be) all taken on the same day in a house that I had rented soon after getting the devil dog. 

It should be known that this house was brand new.  As in I was the first occupant, to the point where I couldn't move in until after the occupancy inspection by the county.  The house was obviously in immaculate condition. 

I did get what little furniture and the rest of my stuff easily into this place and introduced Daed to his new toy, the house. Noticing that I'm getting sideways onto this rant, I'll leave you with the idea of an 11 month old, 70lb "ball of love wrapped in fur" using the brand spanking new hardwood banister as his latest chew toy.  Security de-whats-it?

This, in itself, was not adorable.  The look he gave me when I caught him, however, was.  If you can remember back to Saturday morning cartoons that were generally voiced by Mel Blanc you may recall the phrase "I'll love him and hug him and squeeze him and call him George".  If you're replaying that phrase in your head with slow witted, deep, innocent voice that I am, then you'll know the voice that Daed had (in my head of course) when he looked up from the banister to me with a giant grin saying, "Hi, Dad!  Thanks for the toy!"

This was ALWAYS the voice I used for him.  "Cookie?! Dad, I'll do your taxes for a cookie" sounds humorous in that voice, and I'm pretty sure that Daed would actually do something with the tax forms if I gave him a cookie.  I doubt the auditors would find the same humor in that I did though. 

If I could get those auditors to see :

 

they may just understand why I let it go.

Daed didn't define adorable for me, he made it tangible.

Baby boy, I haven't forgotten about you, I'm just learning to deal.

Eight.

As I type this, it's already 2 days past what would have been Daed's eighth birthday.  This is the time where I should be worrying about his hips a little more and keeping a closer eye on his diet, all the while sneaking in an extra cookie or two when his sister isn't paying attention. This is when I should be instigating Zuki to go jump on him to keep the big lug as active as possible.

Instead, I sit here looking at pictures and relishing sense memory of the way his muzzle felt, like felt coincidentally, when I pet him to sleep and the way he'd lean in to my chest when I'd hug him and we'd mutually assess each other's welfare.  Instead I keep an eye on his sister who is doing her damndest to step up and fill in his shoes paws as the pack protector despite my objections.  She needs to be a puppy.

Any which way it happens, Daed, I miss you.  Zuki misses you.  Everyone misses you. With any luck there is something beyond where you're chasing birds, sleeping upside down in the sunlight, eating cookies and getting loved. 

I hope you had a happy birthday, sweet boy. 

Daed's views on getting older:














This would have been posted earlier, but anything other than blindly keeping busy on Daed's birthday would have had undesirable results.

Reality sets in and leaves its mark

Here we are in the latter part of November. My birthday and those of both of my parents have come and gone within the past week. Daed was sent over the bridge on my mother's birthday.

Apparently, however, the reality of this didn't exist in my mind until today. The facts that I've been religiously carrying his name tag around with me and holding onto his collar when I drive were apparently just my reaction to the concepts that are bred into us as mortals.

Today, well, today things became a little more real. This still hasn't completely set in to my conciousness. I know he's gone, but I haven't accepted that fact yet. This afternoon I took what remains home.

My first thought as I left the vet's office was "My boy should not be in a box. He should be rolling around in a field somewhere and chasing anything that moves." I couldn't fathom being able to pick him up with one hand, at least not since he was a tiny puppy.

Today, Daed had handles and a black paper bag.

A little background

If you're reading this blog, you more than likely know me (Don) and possibly even Daed.  The original intent of this blog was to be the anthropomorphized comments that I, and others, had imagined Daed would be saying about the situations he was in or seeing. 

Daed always had an expression of some kind that made me think that he was trying to convey a message in his way.  Granted, most of these messages would have been things like "I like cheese." or "I really, REALLY like cheese.  I'll do your taxes for some cheese". 

Occasionally, though, he had some deeper expressions like "Take another picture and I'll chew your camera while you sleep"

This was all, of course, posturing as he would only chew on that which he was allowed (once he got past his teething, that is). 

However, back to the original tangent, the original intent was supposing that Daed was still actively having the moments that seemed to require anthropomorphizing.   It kills me to say that he is no longer with us. 

Over the course of the past 2-3 weeks Daed had developed what turned out to be splenic tumors and liver failure.  It came on very suddenly and even more quickly. He was running around and playing on Halloween weekend then, merely 10 days later, a vet is nonchalantly delivering the devestation. 

Having been asked about the timing, I scheduled it for the next day as I knew there would be people that would want to say bye and that he should get at least a day of nothing but pampering, treats, affection and seeing as many of the people that he loves as he could.  

And that's exactly what happened. Friends came over to see him off. We reminisced. We gently scolded him for things that were out of his control.  We loved on him.

Later, I slept as close to him as possible, gave him love and treats as often as he'd take them and took care of anything that he needed.  I foolishly attempted to go to work the next day (his time was to expire in the early evening) and I couldn't focus on anything other than him. I managed to almost get something done through noon when I emailed my boss what was going on and left.

Sidenote: the end of that email, verbatim, "I would have come to you and done this in person, but talking is not my strong suit right now".

My girlfriend and I spent the rest of the day taking care of the boy.  She had just sat down with him on a blanket in front of the apartment when I drove up.  Daed saw me and actually sprung to his feet.  Mixed, I smiled and worried that he may hurt himself further.  I got kisses that had been scarce as of late.  More smiling.

As we got closer to the time, his breathing became shallow and rapid, he couldn't stand and wouldn't even eat chocolate (damned training!!).  I was in the back of the SUV with him.  As we approached the vet's office, he leaned into one last time to comfort me.  He wasn't sure what he did, but he was sorry that I wasn't feeling good. 

He mustered up the strength to stand for the last time and fumbled inside to lay down on the nice, cool tile. The vet and her assistant brought out a motorized lifting gurney and we were able to lift him by his legs to put him on it.  

Once he was mildly sedated, we were brought back to see him.  Having only 15% red blood cells left in his blood, the sedative took hold quickly. We had enough chance to let him know how much we love him and will miss him.  His breathing at this point was back to normal. Of course that meant that he wasn't getting enough oxygen, but that was moot.

The final anesthetic was given.  One hand on his head, one on his heart, I could feel it slowing down.  Then nothing. 

My heart dropped.  My rock, my love, my sweet, sweet baby boy was gone and there was nothing anyone could possibly do about it now.  The "woo woo" welcome was gone.  The killer, dog-wagging tail was still.  Delivery people would have to knock against silence.

Just in case you were wondering at this point, I loved that boy and miss him dearly.  If, however, you were actually wondering that, you may just want to go back to drinking beer and surfing porn.

This will be an active blog, as long as I have memories of Daed that I feel that I want to share.   I will even post as him when it seems appropriate.  This is going to be a loving memorial of a dog who shaped my life and trained me to be the man I am today.

The story begins

Daed was my boy for 7 years, 8 months and 29 days. I got him when he was 8 weeks old in February of 2002. For those wondering about the math, that's 1 month and a day short of his eighth birthday.

From the first day that I had met this fluff-ball, when he was 5 weeks old, I was in love. He slept through most of our initial encounter and he generally only awoke to pee, eat, kiss and find a comfortable place to curl up again. Not much changed since then, except his size and the amount and frequency of love he displayed.

My close friend Sean and I left early from our respective Puget Sound homes. Having packed the expected requirements for a tiny little puppy: blankets, bowls, water, food and toys, we were on our way. Five hours later, arriving at his breeder's house in Spokane (http://www.majerakitas.com/).

The day I picked him up was cold and snowy, A.K.A. "any Winter day ending in 'day' in east Washington". Sean and I chatted with the breeders's, Maddy and Jeremy, and some of the Daed's sibling's other parents. Maddy had prepared a plethora of information and swag that would help prepare me for transition of the boy into my life. She forgot to mention that he'd be taking over my heart.

The Daed package consisted of a folder with all of his lineage information, checkup and immunization reports, to-do lists, toys, more bowls, food and a box to hold it all (in which his toys still reside,  when they're not being played with or used as pillows).

Sadly, Sean and I needed to head west and were not able to join the rest of the crew in their new-puppy celebrations. We set the puppy-breath generator into the flattened cargo area of Sean's fiance's SUV where he (Daed) promptly fell back to sleep.  Apparently he had been playing with his siblings for the better part of the morning. Being Akita's, quite intelligent and empathic, the brood most likely felt the mixed-energy in the air that Maddy and Jeremy were putting out. Happy to see their pups go to new, loving homes, but sad to see their puppies go. All of that pooped the boy out. He slept the entire way back. I actually had to wake him up to "use the facilities" and take in some water and food at a rest stop about half way back. He was asleep as I lifted him off the ground to put him back into the SUV.

Once we arrived back at Sean and Kerry's house, where I had left my car, I put the bulk of Daed's stuff into my car and took him inside to meet Jericho and Kerry. Jericho was, a the time, a 100lb+ Akita and quite tall. Here's Daed at 22lbs and maybe 18" in length. Jericho came over to say hi to his dad and wiggle at me when he saw the extra fur we brought inside with us. He quite literally scared the pee out of Daed with the loud "this is my house" bark. Daed tried to escape to anywhere he could, ending up back in my arms, which has always been my preferred spot for him. After some time, Jericho was able to tolerate the presence of Daed, and right around that time Daed felt it necessary to pounce on him. Thankfully for him it was time to go home.

Finally, after quite a long day for Sean, myself and this 2 month old love-ball, Daed and I arrived at his new home. He felt it necessary to mark it in a couple of ways, once I cleaned that up, I picked the little guy up and loved him for a little bit and tried to keep him from chewing on things he shouldn't be.
Once we got the playing out of the way, he needed some more water and a little food and then it was off to bed, an ordeal into itself. This is the first time, in his life, that Daed was going to spend the night with just one other animal in the room. He usually had 7 other siblings and possibly even his mom and dad to keep him company as well as provide warmth and safety.

At this point, he was given a nice, comfy bed, a blanket for this bed and a toy to chew on in case he was bored. What happened after that is best described by a quick psuedo-code definition:

1. Crawl into bed
2. Pull blankets up
3. Push blankets off
4. Console Daed
5. Set Daed back into bed
6. Repeat steps 1-5 3 or 4 times
7. Pull blankets and pillow down onto floor
8. Snuggle up with Fluffy

Okay, so the next morning, I woke up after having 'slept' next to Daed the entire night with a wrenched neck and back and, much more importantly, a safe, sound, snug, snoring puppy.
I woke him up by kissing his head and scratching his neck. Sidenote: he wasn't quite sure about either of those, however, after repeating those actions many times, they became a requirement of his.

He decided to pee in the bedroom, right in front of the nice, non-absorbant tile on the nice, ultra-absorbant carpet. "NO!" was exclaimed and he was ushered into the bathroom. Of course, all that did was result in sad-puppy eyes and a dumbell shadow of urine crossing the carpet-tile transition.

We spent the next few minutes discovering stairs. Here he was in a whole new world, just a short while after having been introduced to the world in the first place, and I'm trying to convince him to do the unthinkable. Seriously,  imagine that you're about 10" tall, spent practically all of your life at one altitude with the exception of being occasionally shuttled by giant, two-legged things, and now one of them is trying to convince you that if you walk forward, off the edge of the world no-less, that you will not get hurt.

It takes a leap of faith, pardon the pun, to make that step, pardon that pun, also. With some sweet-talking and cookie-cohersion, he jumped. And landed, albeit with a slight stumble. Then he looked down and noticed that he could do it again. Being curious, he jumped again, and again.

All in all, he enjoyed his new found explorer status, so much so that he had to work his way back up the stairs to come down again. That worked up an appetite and a thirst! Good thing there's more carpet down here to pee on!!