Saying Good-bye

I’m a bit behind today, in fact I’m behind by a day from my normal blogging schedule. I just got back from the TNNA Winter Trade Show in San Diego. Walked in the door last night at 9 p.m. I’ll tell you all about TNNA and the fun stuff I did there in my Friday post.

Today is about my darling dog Tango. The last few weeks he has been going downhill fast, but he waited for me to get back from this trip. When I checked on him last night I knew he was ready to leave us, even if it was so hard to let him go.

My husband had told me on the way home from the airport that he had been unable to persuade Tango to eat anything for the past 2 days and it was getting harder and harder to get him up to walk outside for bathroom needs.

Tango came to us thru the Rocky Mountain Lab Rescue (RMLR). At that time we were fostering for RMLR. We had limited access to our home because of the road damages on our canyon caused by the historic floods in September 2013, so we hadn’t been fostering for a while at the time. But we had agreed to take him temporarily while his regular foster was out of the state for Thanksgiving.

He was a mess when we met him. He had mostly recovered from recent surgery on his knee for ACL issues and on his side where a large cancerous tumor had been removed. His hair was shaved over 1/3 of his body.  He was 6 1/2 years old by the vet’s estimate. And his RMLR name was Fango. But he was so very sweet and had the most beautiful eyes. I fell in love with him pretty much at first sight.

We were only supposed to foster him for 6 days, then he was going to go back to his first foster until a forever home was found for him. But the original fosters had a family emergency that meant they couldn’t take him back. We were happy to take over as fosters, because by that time we were reluctant to let him go.

He was so lovey and sweet, our other dog even got along with him. But we didn’t want to adopt him because he was so big. At 104 pounds that was a lot of dog in our little house. We got very few calls from approved adopters interested in him. The calls we did get were discouraged by his medical history combined with his age.

Once the winter holiday break rolled around we were all in love with him. The boys really wanted to keep him. I had bought him a nice big bed to sleep on and he was the constant companion of our youngest son. By Christmas Eve day we decided we were going to keep him for ourselves.

We filed the adoption papers with RMLR and re-named him Tango. We picked that name because he tended to “tap-dance” when ever it was dinner-time or we were giving out treats.

He was fully recovered from his surgeries by early February and he really became part of the family. He played with our other dog, Kenna, and loved to go for walks. When I was working at my desk he would come put his head in my lap for some ear rubs, then lay down beside my chair while I was at the computer.

Every day we reminded ourselves that our time with him might be limited. So we made sure to give him lots of love and hugs. When we adopted him I wasn’t sure if we would even have him a full year after everything he had been thru. Amazingly enough he was with us for over 2 years before this morning’s sad events.

We kept the boys home from school this morning and our wonderful vet, Lisa Cass, came to the house to help us say goodbye. Right now my eyes are very sore from crying but I know we gave him a happy life for the 2 years he was with us. He gave us so much love and joy. He will be missed, but we don’t regret having adopted an old dog.

Tomorrow I will be back into my daily routine, but today is about remembering one of the sweetest dogs that has been part of our family.