Spot
My family got our dog Spot in 1996... 10 years ago. We got him when I was about 8 or 9 years old... which would have been when I was in 3rd grade - Mrs. Wetzel's class. We got him so that our other dog, Sally (z''l), would have a playmate and a friend.
He is a purebred dalmation but was the runt of the litter because of a pure white face, which in breeding terms is a feature known as a "ghost face".
When we first got him, he was small enough to run under (and he did) our other dog, Sally (z''l), who herself was well below knee height. He has grown so much since then.
He would chew on everything and anything that he could get his cute little teeth on- table supports, rulers, bones, shoes, sports balls, anything.
He's well known among visitors to our house b/c he has several distinctly shaped spots on his body, such as smiley face pattern on his butt and a heart on his nose. He's also very infamous for sticking his nose in visitor's crotchs to sniff them. We still tell the story of one of my mom's customers who had the bad luck of him getting under her dress and sniffing her :-).
We used to get him these rubber toys called "Tuft Toys" that had three thick rubber rings, only with the size decreasing so there was a small one, a medium one, and a large one. You were supposed to put some food on the inside of the rings (the hole was about an 1" or 1.5" in diameter) and the dog would lick it out. We put peanut butter on the inside, and Spot would eat the entire Tuft Toy, including the rubber rings!!
I've played on our "rope" in the backyard with Spot, taken him for hour-long plus runs (always with a sprint in the last 200 feet to the house), fed him rasberries in the backyard, even taught him to sit and shake his paw in exchange for food.
I'm crying as i type this. Spot's about 10 years old and has been diagnosed with heart failure. He wheezes and hacks because of how his heart presses up against his lungs, but I know he's still a puppy in his head. He still perks up when my sisters or I come home, when my dad offers him his daily "cookie", and still is the half-assed watch dog he always was. But my parents and the vetrenarian say that he's in pain, and that we may have to put him to sleep soon. His appetite has dropped a huge amount and even though we once called him fat, you can count his ribs when he breaths and his vertebrae when he lies down. He's been a part of me for soooo long and I wish that he wasn't dying. But all I can do is pray for him to be comfortable. I'm not ready to let him go, and I don't think I ever will be. But I have to. and it tears me apart :'(
The reason I wrote this entry is that I wanted to ask that if you are reading this, if you could pray for Spot and for his well-being. He may be an old dog, and although I do not believe it (and never will) his time may be coming, but at the least I want him to live until both my sisters are home at the end of this month.
(If I'm an asshole to anyone within the next 2-4 weeks, please do not take it personally. I hate doing it but imagining or thinking about his death makes me really upset.)
He is a purebred dalmation but was the runt of the litter because of a pure white face, which in breeding terms is a feature known as a "ghost face".
When we first got him, he was small enough to run under (and he did) our other dog, Sally (z''l), who herself was well below knee height. He has grown so much since then.
He would chew on everything and anything that he could get his cute little teeth on- table supports, rulers, bones, shoes, sports balls, anything.
He's well known among visitors to our house b/c he has several distinctly shaped spots on his body, such as smiley face pattern on his butt and a heart on his nose. He's also very infamous for sticking his nose in visitor's crotchs to sniff them. We still tell the story of one of my mom's customers who had the bad luck of him getting under her dress and sniffing her :-).
We used to get him these rubber toys called "Tuft Toys" that had three thick rubber rings, only with the size decreasing so there was a small one, a medium one, and a large one. You were supposed to put some food on the inside of the rings (the hole was about an 1" or 1.5" in diameter) and the dog would lick it out. We put peanut butter on the inside, and Spot would eat the entire Tuft Toy, including the rubber rings!!
I've played on our "rope" in the backyard with Spot, taken him for hour-long plus runs (always with a sprint in the last 200 feet to the house), fed him rasberries in the backyard, even taught him to sit and shake his paw in exchange for food.
I'm crying as i type this. Spot's about 10 years old and has been diagnosed with heart failure. He wheezes and hacks because of how his heart presses up against his lungs, but I know he's still a puppy in his head. He still perks up when my sisters or I come home, when my dad offers him his daily "cookie", and still is the half-assed watch dog he always was. But my parents and the vetrenarian say that he's in pain, and that we may have to put him to sleep soon. His appetite has dropped a huge amount and even though we once called him fat, you can count his ribs when he breaths and his vertebrae when he lies down. He's been a part of me for soooo long and I wish that he wasn't dying. But all I can do is pray for him to be comfortable. I'm not ready to let him go, and I don't think I ever will be. But I have to. and it tears me apart :'(
The reason I wrote this entry is that I wanted to ask that if you are reading this, if you could pray for Spot and for his well-being. He may be an old dog, and although I do not believe it (and never will) his time may be coming, but at the least I want him to live until both my sisters are home at the end of this month.
(If I'm an asshole to anyone within the next 2-4 weeks, please do not take it personally. I hate doing it but imagining or thinking about his death makes me really upset.)