Goodbye, Little Buddy

On Tuesday, September 2, we helped Auggie shuffle off this mortal coil; life was starting to be too much for him. No matter how many sandbags we put up, every couple of days the flood of anxiety would break the banks and leave him walking around the house and yard, panting until some ephemeral equilibrium was met and he could lie down and go to sleep.

Accompanying his increasing anxiety, Auggie was showing his age physically more every day. His hips would sink lower and lower while he ate until he was sitting. He stumbled more and more on our walks. Even when he was really happy and having fun, the best he could muster was a trot, not his lifelong carefree gallop.

So we chose Labor Day weekend as a long weekend that we could be home and let him have a few last days with none of the stuff that typically made him so nervous. We doted on him and brushed him and gave him pretty much unlimited treats and took him to the lake with the other dogs. He had a great weekend.

In fourteen and a half years, I never saw Auggie back down from anything or refuse a challenge. Inside the little 26 pound frame was the heart of a lion. Even under the influence of the massive dose of sedative they gave him at the clinic, he refused to lie down. I had to coax him into position for the final injection. He went very quickly and very peacefully, lying between Katie and me.

So if you have a quiet moment tonight or tomorrow, think about little Auggie, and be happy that he doesn't have to worry anymore.

More later.

Love,
Katie and David