The Best Dog Ever and the No Good, Very Bad Day

In September of 2004, we decided that it was time to get a dog.  We knew that we’d only consider a rescue dog and we thought that it would take lots of visits before we found the right dog.  We wanted a puppy as we had two children and we wanted them to “grow up together”.

Our first trip to the Humane Society surprised us, as there was a litter of pups that had been born at the shelter four months earlier.  They had just been released for viewing, because they had been born with fleas, to a neglected, malnourished mother and developed a skin condition, which they were still being treated for all these months later. Two of the litter were left, both of them boys, one looked like a shepherd with sharp, silver eyes and the other looked like a hound, black and tan with soulful brown eyes.  While the silver eyed pup was the more striking of the two, I knew that the brown eyed one was the dog for us.  He was so interested in the children, smelling them, licking them, running into them, playing with them; I knew that this was our dog.

We couldn’t finalize his homecoming until he was given a clean bill of health and had been neutered, but we brought him home on a “trial basis” and gave him his medicine and applied ointment to his skin and made him eat the awful smelling oil that the vet said would help him heal and checked his skin and fell head over heels in love with him.

Less than a month later we were struck with three hurricanes in a row and were left without power for five days.  Five days with a wet, smelly, hound dog…  I had some puppy remorse then, but we got through it.

When Riley was about a year old, we brought him to the groomer and they dropped him off the grooming table and he dislocated his hip.  Through the surgery and the recovery, once again we nursed this dog back to health.

For the next four years, Riley was the most incredible, loving, mush of a dog; the best dog I have ever known.

Last week he got sick.  We didn’t know what was wrong and we didn’t think much of it.  After a couple of days we decided that he needed to go to the vet.  He wasn’t eating and he wouldn’t go to the bathroom, he was listless and even though he seemed to be in good spirits and was wagging his tail, he didn’t want to do anything.  We figured he ate something funny, or worst case scenario had a blockage.

My husband took Riley to the vet this morning and news was worse than we could have imagined.  Riley’s gallbladder had given out.  Just like that.  No rhyme, no reason, his kidneys were shutting down and the vet gave him two days to live.  He told us that Riley was in pain and we decided to do what we thought was best for him.

Jim brought Riley home and we hugged him and held him and pet him and told him how much we loved him and what a good boy he was and we said good-bye and then Jim put him back in the car and brought him back to the vet.  He stayed with him till Riley was gone, and Jim said that he went very peacefully.

I don’t know why this happened and I can barely see through my tears and I can’t imagine coming home to a house without Riley wagging his tail to welcome us. I can’t imagine why we only got to spend five years with this beautiful dog, but even if I knew how it would end, I wouldn’t have missed it.