Tuck-a-luck

How long does it take to stop listening for the clicking of his nails on the floor? When will I just stand up after being curled up on the sofa and NOT look for Tucker to avoid stepping on him as he was always curled up under me? When will I forget the softness of his ears that Jack loved to stroke? I loved the scruff of his big wide neck and will miss burying my face into it.

As I shared in my last blog post, Brooke is all about adventure and I am all about relaxing and connecting with friends. Neither of us is a decisive decision maker. We both saw the clear demise of Tucker but neither could say "We need to put him down". We held out hope that this wasn't the end even though he was 15 1/2 years old. "But maybe he really isn't that old since he's a rescue and you never know for sure if the people who turned him in knew his real age? They told us his birthday was July 4th....what are the odds of that REALLY being his birthday? Maybe he's only 13 or 14 years old?" Hello denial.

I had taken him to the vet two weeks earlier and she had shared that after 5 months on Remidil, his tummy could be nauseous from the meds which was causing him to not want to eat and we could wean him off that medicine before trying another pain killer. He could barely walk without that med so I didn't want him to be in pain for his remaining days so we tried Pepcid AC to help his tummy. It was then they I couldn't even get his meds down as he was refusing ALL food. This past weekend (after a week of no meds), he started wanting to try food again!! I was psyched and thought that he had weaned himself off the meds and now we could try another pain med. There was (false) hope! I made an appointment on Monday and took him in. When they weighed him, the flood gates of tears opened and didn't stop all day. At his prime he weighed 89 lbs. On Monday, he was 53 lbs. I knew that it was bad since I could easily pick him up to put him into the back of the car. In his prime, I could barely lift him and really didn't need to since he could jump in and out of the car by himself. Our very kind vet didn't seem to notice my puffy, red eyes or the constant flow of tears. She handed me a box of kleenex. I used a lot of them. They must deal with sad owners like me on a daily basis, right? That has to be one of the hardest parts of their job sharing the news that it is time? I NEEDED her to make the decision as we couldn't do it. This was a gift to Tucker. His quality of life was over. Even going on a short walk didn't appeal to him anymore and walks were what made him his happiest.

Brooke and Jack were with Tucker for his last breath. He was surrounded by love (and sobbing) and went peacefully. While they took Tucker to the vet, I took Molly to her music therapy after saying my last goodbye to Tuck-a-luck. I sobbed for the entire 20 minute drive. Molly kept looking at me knowing something wasn't right. We had tried to explain Tuckers situation but she didn't seem to get it or care or understand? "Putting a dog down" and "death" are such abstract concepts that are almost impossible for a kid with autism to understand. I wanted her to say goodbye to Tuck, which she did with a quick wave, but did she know that she was saying goodbye forever? We have no idea? I even showed her Tucker's empty bed the next morning but she didn't show any signs of getting it. Or maybe she understands even better than WE do? Maybe she knows Tucker is in Heaven and romping with his pals? But if she ever can talk and go to therapy and complain about how she was raised, she won't be able to say that we hid Tucker's death from her! ;)

And to be totally honest, making the decision and following through with that decision was WAY harder than the days that follow. I haven't even cried today :) Watching Tucker not eat, and throw up on the carpet, and go in and out and in and out and stare off into nowhere was really tough. Not having to stress over his health the last few days has brought a sense of peace.

What I DO know is that loving a dog and losing a dog is one of the hardest emotional processes we can go through and I have been through a number of heartaches in my 50 years. They capture our hearts and love us unconditionally. They are there wagging their tails when we get home and are equally excited to see us if we only leave to go outside to bring the paper back in. They are the essence of love and open our hearts. Losing them is so painful as they are a member of the family. I have never had so many lovely notes of compassion via my FB page as I have with Tucker's passing. Dog people understand and we all reach out to each other when we lose a family member. Thank you ALL for reaching out, loving us, and sharing your own doggie stories. I love to hear them. RIP sweet Tucker. Thanks for being a part of our family for 8 1/2 years. We will miss you!

He barked at MANY deer, neighbor cats that taunted him, and wagged as we approached from this front window perch.

Our Last Days With Tucker

Every morning I'm hesitant to look at Tucker in his bed. It's that dreaded feeling of "is he still alive?"

Our 15 year old yellow lab is dying slowly day by day. In hindsight, his refusal to eat 2 weeks ago wasn't really refusal like it is now...it was more picky. I could hide his medicine in hot dogs that more often than not he would eat around the pill and spit it onto the floor while the hot dog slid down to his ever shrinking tummy. Which meant that I would have to try that trick again and usually the pill would go down the second time. Then we had to put peanut butter on the pill once he refused the hot dogs. Last week he wouldn't even eat bacon fat poured on his food!! That is unheard of as this dog NEVER got people food and his only encounter into our world of goodness was the bacon fat from our breakfast bacon which he devoured with abandon. I have given up my "dogs don't get people food" stance and you should see me begging him to try....scrambled eggs (they worked twice), leftover turkey (he devoured it twice and after that turned up his nose), BBQ chicken (good for a couple bites). He also goes to his water bowl 322 times a day and NEVER drinks. I need a job outside of the home so that I don't have to watch this demise minute by minute. He also wants to go outside every 15 minutes!! In and out, in and out....and while outside he stares off at the mountain and I wonder what he is thinking?

We started this grand "dog lover" adventure before we got married. My in-laws yellow lab had puppies and we were the lucky beneficiaries of one of the females. I will never forget the day that we picked which one would be ours. All the puppies were in the outdoor pen. Brooke opened the door to let them spill out into the yard. The first puppy sprinted out at top speed to chase a ball that had been tossed. She was darker than the others and had a pointier nose. Brooke fell in love. "Look at her energy! She is so much faster than all the others" he said with a huge smile on his face. He's a sucker for an athlete. Meanwhile, the last puppy moseyed out, wagged his tail and plopped himself beside me so that I could rub his tummy. Now that is MY kind of dog. This story perfectly describes our marriage in the last 22 years since. Brooke is all action and excitement. Give me a massage, hot bath and warm fire where I can curl up and read and I am in heaven. Maybe we should have paid a little more attention to the signs before? :)

Brooke won. We got Darley the most annoying fetcher ever. She was obsessed with chasing...anything and everything. She would clip the back of your legs with a huge log/tree that she would find and pick up and lug around on every hike. She'd clip you then turn around and stop in front of you and try and toss it to your feet so that you'd have to throw it and she could go fetch it again. Fetching wasn't limited to outside either. We were never safe from the obsessive fetching. Inside she would bring the tiniest piece of lint off of the floor and flick it onto the sofa beside you. She'd back up and intensely look from it to you until you flicked it. She needed daily excercise or we would pay. She was the perfect companion for Brooke's back country skiing, biking on open trails and of course running the hills around our mountain town. She mostly just annoyed me even though I loved her and was so sad when she passed at 14 years old. We couldn't face the inevitable of putting her down and canceled the appointment 3 weeks in a row. She had lived in the carpeted basement for the last year of her life as she couldn't do stairs to go outside to pee and she kept sliding on our upstairs hard wood floors. It wasn't until she didn't want to chase a ball or even mouth a ball that we KNEW it was time. Her quality of life was over. And we cried....a lot!!

And here we are again. We gave ourselves a year after Darley died to get another dog. We enjoyed not having to sweep the endless lab dog hair up on a daily basis. We liked not having to take a dog out for exercise....even Brooke enjoyed the down time as we were in the thick of autism chaos 9 years ago. Our poor first "child" Darley wasn't even making the annual Christmas photo anymore!! This is after taking 1.2 million pictures of her pre kids.

But once a dog lover, always a dog lover. We missed the companionship and Jack was begging for one. We knew that we wanted another lab and wanted a little bit older dog as Molly had developed an extreme fear of dogs in those last few years. It got to the point that she wouldn't get out of the car to go for a hike as she knew we would see other dogs on the trails. We aren't exactly sure what happened to create this fear and can only recall a neighbors puppy jumping all over her and scaring her. Maybe that was it? What we did know is that we weren't going to let that fear drive her or our lives. We live in Colorado where everyone has dogs and we love to hike....so Molly was going to live with another dog whether she liked it or not. But a puppy sounded like too much work. I started the Safe Harbor Lab Rescue application out of Golden, Colorado. I looked at the cute pictures that came across the website. We heard that the rescue had called our former vet to see if we were good owners. They wanted to know that we had 4 foot fence that surrounded our yard. They wanted to know that we wouldn't chain up the dog. They wanted a forever home for this dog as he had already been through enough and they didn't want him to have to move again. We promised that we'd keep him forever. We passed and went to pick up seven year old "Target".

Molly was at a summer camp for special needs kids that all use augmentative communication. We just had Jack home and knew that 5 days of no Molly would be good as we introduced the new dog to our home. He was a big beautiful guy with a wide head and friendly wag of the tail. We were psyched to have a male as they don't give your lawn those burned out pee circles like Darley had done. What we didn't know was that he came with A LOT of issues that we were surprised about. Brooke took him to the park that first day. He took him off the leash and threw the ball. At this point we had switched his name to Tucker (Target felt like target practice). Tucker took off for the ball and then ran right past it and down into the woods. Gone. He wasn't coming when his name(s) were called either. This habit lasted FOR YEARS!! If he got out of our front door, he was gone. Up the neighborhood and then down into our wide open space of Red Rock Canyon. I'd post to our neighborhood FB page that he had escaped (again) and someone would reply that they had him..... eventually.

He had a few behaviors that we didn't know how they started since he came to us at 7 years old. He was scared to use stairs! It took him a few months to finally get up his nerve to go down to our basement. So weird. When he'd hear a siren he would howl. He also marked all over our house. It was HIS house. Damn males. We were quickly second-guessing the desire for a male. He was aggressive with other dogs while he was on lead. Off lead, he was fine. And he was always SO sweet with people. I was too nervous to walk with him so that was left to Brooke and within the year he was great with all dogs. Lastly, we got such a laugh when we'd give him a raw hide or treat to chew on. He would gently take it in his mouth and proceed to bury it in the back yard. Darley had NEVER done that and we thought that only happened in the movies.

Most pictures that we have are of Tucker on a hike with Molly.

These three have hiked MANY miles together through the years.

Jack's lacrosse balls were safe from our non fetching lab.

Always sleeps this way.

When we first got Tucker, Jack loved him right away.

He's SO skinny now as he's deep in thought.

So here we are. We will love on our sweet Tucker until we can't any longer. He has been a gift to our family and has taught Molly how to not be afraid of dogs anymore. I'm glad his other family gave him up as we were the big winners with that decision. xo