In my 35 years of life I've found myself crying for a pet more than once. But it had been a while... This time around I was not alone. This time around Lionel was equally distraught.
It all started many years ago. Per my insistence, a few months after getting married we went and got a dog. Lionel never had one as a kid, and I missed having one around. When we went to the shelter I liked this one Chow Chow, but Lionel noticed Rusty just standing there - calm and collected - while the other dogs were going crazy barking and chasing their tails.
When they brought Rusty into the room to visit with us he walked in, came straight to us, and gave us the paw. And that was it. At that very moment Lionel fell in love with him and he got himself a ticket to be the third Bey. We had to wait couple days, but on Feb 7, 2002 he came home with us.
Rusty was a mellow, sweet dog since day one. He was so mellow that when we lived in our first house we actually thought he didn't know how to bark. Back then, since we didn't have children or a fenced in yard, we used to walk him three times a day. Those were "the days" for him.
When we moved into our new house seven years ago he was with us. When we became parents for the first time he was with us. When I got my current job he was with us. When we brought my parents to Cincinnati he was with us. Through so many crucial moments - good and bad - he was with us. Every day he welcomed us when we came back from work, and sat next to me when I worked at night. He and I were always the last ones up. Even though at the beginning he was very much Lionel's dog, somewhere along the way he started to follow me around instead. He became my boy.
Sadly, over the last couple weeks his heath really started to deteriorate. The vet said his liver was failing him, and the only thing they could do was give him medicine to help him eat and ease the discomfort. At the beginning we were hopeful the medicine would help him for a little while - but that didn't last. We tried couple different medicines and several kinds of food, but yesterday it became apparent he was done when he struggled getting up and completely stopped drinking at all.
So last night, just a few days short of our 10th anniversary with him, we had to put him down. It was heartbreaking, but we knew it was the right thing for him. We said our goodbyes, and through the whole process I held him in my arms ... one last time.
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