It is still really hard for me to type these words. The pain is too new, too raw.
I know I don't post here very much anymore (I'm a full time college student and the last few semesters have seen me taking some very tough classes. I barely have time to sleep.) but I can't let this great dog's death go unmentioned.
We had to have our golden boy, Gandy, put to sleep on Tuesday Jan. 30 at the age of 15. He had developed arthritis, as many older dogs do, and was having great problems getting around. Deramaxx helped for a bit, but eventually it wasn't helping much. A week earlier we had brought him to the vet and he was put on Prednisone, but the vet was pretty sure that he had some spinal cord damage judging from his movement. We decided to see if the Pred would help, but sadly it didn't.
I came home from school last Monday night and found him at the bottom of our basement stairs. How he had gotten there was a mystery - he hadn't been down those stairs in months; he hadn't even been out in the kitchen for weeks (The stairs lead down from the kitchen, and our kitchen is a step up from the rest) so it was strange and upsetting, to say the least. His 'safe place' from T-storms and fireworks had been in the basement under the stairs, so I think he was trying to make it to his safe place one last time. I carried him upstairs (he had lost so much weight the last few months that it was easy for me), and called my SO Jeff to come home from work. Gandy could not walk anymore. He was skin and bones and we knew what had to be done.
We both took the next day off school and work and spent our last day with Gandy. We called the Vet and Gandy crossed the Rainbow Bridge at 6 PM that night.
Gandy was a very good dog. Jeff had him when we met in 1993, and Gandy was about a year/year and a half old (Jeff is really bad with dates, but I knew he was no longer a puppy). I had Bandit at the time and at first those two did not get along well. Both were male and both had dominant tenancies. However, after a few weeks of park visits together they were good buddies, often romping and roughhousing together, and playing games of chase me around the tree.
Jeff told me he had gotten Gandy from the people who owned his mother, but he wasn't the first person who had him. The people the owners had originally gave him to had neglected him, so the mom dog's owner took him back after seeing how skinny he had gotten, and how his coat was full of burrs and dirty. Jeff had lost his last dog the winter before and was not sure of getting a new dog...but decided to go take a look anyway. Jeff said that the minute he walked onto these people's property Gandy attached himself to Jeff and didn't leave. Undecided about a new dog, Jeff got into the truck to leave - and Gandy jumped in with him and there was no question about Gandy going home with Jeff. Jeff says that Gandy knew he was going to be his dog before Jeff did.
Gandy was a very charismatic dog. Out of our three dogs, he was the friendliest and was always a favorite of our visitors. Although he loved everybody, there was no question about who he had dedicated his life to - he was Jeff's boy through and through. Wherever Jeff was, there was Gandy.
Gandy "talked" to us, and would never let us see him poop. He would hold it until he could go way into the back of the fenced yard and go out of view. He loved people, but not other dogs. He was very good with our cats, even when they were pests. He let them sleep by them and share his bed.
He hated the utility people that had to come into our yard on occasion, but loved visitors he knew. He absolutely loved cold weather and would often be found, on the coldest winter days, happily laying in the yard on the snow. He loved to run. He hated loud noises - thunderstorms, fireworks and people yelling.
In the last year he had become deaf, so the loud things didn't bother him anymore. When we wanted him to come in from the yard we would clap our hands for him - he could respond to claps oddly enough, even though his hearing was gone. When his hearing went he developed a strange habit of barking at plane contrails - we pretty much had to keep him in on days that the atmospheric conditions were good for big contrails to form.
Gandy had a good life, and was a great friend and companion to us. Watching him go downhill the last few months and letting him go was so hard. It is a terrible thing to have to do. We stayed with him as the vet gave the last injection. He went quickly and peacefully and many, many tears flowed. He will be creamated and his ashes kept with us forever in an urn.
Goodbye Gandy, and may all your fields be green, and all your skies clear and blue.
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Merry Holidays to One an All Blessed be 
Gandy was a handsome boy and I'm sure had a wonderful life with you. He is now happy and healthy at the Rainbow Bridge and someday you will be reunited. It is very hard to lose our beloved furkids, it really hurts our hearts,but in time you will feel a bit less pain. {hugs}
I miss you
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