Our dog Shadow crossed the rainbow bridge tonight (roughly 9 pm on Jun 26, 2024). He was 13 years old and had suffered a couple massive seizures that led the emergency vet to find what was very likely widespread cancer. We made the difficult decision to have him euthanized.
He came into our lives a little over five years ago. I had resisted getting a dog for a long time. I don’t recall why I changed my mind. But, one weekend in May 2019 we found ourselves in a room at the Humane Society waiting to meet him. Fate must have intervened on our behalf that day… we actually had a different dog from the website in mind but it was meeting someone else, so we fell back to Shadow. The worker brought him into the room and he sat down and licked our hands. We were smitten and took him home that day, cramming him with both kids into the back of my wife’s (then) new CR-V.
We were told by the Humane society that Shadow had been twice surrendered by other families. To this day I don’t understand why. He was a little quirky at first… he wouldn’t leave our driveway to go for a walk, so we had to put him in the car and drive him a ways away to walk him. He eventually got over that. He also wouldn’t set foot in our master bedroom. He eventually got over that too, but was never comfortable there so usually would only come in if he needed something (although notably, he slept in there after my wife had knee surgery. His fear of the bedroom was not greater than the sense that she needed him close). He had no fear of the kids rooms… he happily slept in my youngest’s room most of the time for quite a while after we got him.
When we brought him into the house, our then cat Apollo hissed and ran up to the top of his cat tree. That was the beginning of what would prove to be a hilarious relationship with Shadow desperately trying to make friends with Apollo and Apollo not being interested at all. Apollo did eventually learn to tolerate Shadow and would even suffer through a big lick on the head from the much larger animal. Sadly Apollo eventually died from one of the risks of being an indoor/outdoor cat. Shadow grieved with the rest of us.
A (very) late season snow storm right after we got him taught us he was a snow dog. He loved shoving his head into it and didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold. This remained true the whole time he was with us – which meant we walked him in some pretty awful weather.
Shadow was an affectionate dog, after a fashion. He didn’t like to cuddle but he loved to lick people. He also liked to be near whomever was home so would migrate around as people did things in different rooms. He always followed my wife downstairs when she’d do her morning workouts and take a nap while she exercised. He didn’t like it when people would leave the house, especially my wife. If I was still home he’d always come find me after the garage door shut and “complain” (whine) that she was gone. At the same time, he seemed to tolerate being left alone just fine.
He liked his toys – initially we got him some Kong “bones” that he loved, but later he got into various stuffies – most notably “Sheepie” (also known as “Lamp Chop”). He’d fetch them and then lay on them possessively – even to the point of growling at us if we tried to take them. But, he also wanted us to throw them so he could fetch them and then play keep-away.
He was a “squeaker” not a barker. The only times he barked were when he’d meet other dogs while walking (and it was a happy/excited bark, not an angry one), or when he thought he might get to go in the car. On a rare occasion he might bark when someone came to the door, but it was one deep “woof” to let them know he was there, and usually only when we weren’t expecting someone – it’s like he could sense it. We wondered if a previous owner had put a bark collar on him at some point which trained him to whine instead.
Shadow was 8 when we got him so had lost all of his “young dog” energy. When we first got him he still enjoyed 2 walks a day. After a while that went away and over time his remaining walk gradually got shorter. He wasn’t great about hiking on singletrack – he didn’t understand about getting out of the way so I frequently had to shove him with my knees to the side of the trail. But, people were kind about it and so we still had fun.
Over the last few months it was a victory if we could get him to our local park, much less around it. We had to coax him with treats to get him past certain points of the walk. He also started to lose control of where he used the bathroom… he started going in the middle of the sidewalk or even the street. Luckily never the house, because I think he would have been embarrassed. He aged mostly gracefully and we had to pay attention to see the differences… he stopped coming upstairs in the mornings to quietly whine about breakfast. His walks got much shorter. He got some kind of disorder where petting him anywhere other than his head or rump caused his back legs to flail ( we tried various treatments but nothing seemed to help much). But, for the most part, he seemed happy.
In the end, he needed to go and not suffer any more. But, that didn’t make it any easier for the rest of us, or him. We were really blessed to have him as a dog, and a family member, for the years we did. I can’t imagine a better natured, easier to own dog. I mostly hope we did right by him and he enjoyed his life with us.
God speed buddy. Hope to see you on the other side, someday. You were the best boy.