This is how we taught the girls to refer to Peoopee our 9 year old redbone coonhound. Peoopee barked at neighbors, ate diapers, ate multiple wallets and watch bands belonging to Mike, ate poop, looked for any opportunity to snag food from the table or counters, ate leather shoes, and probably lots more bad things. Even with all these things we didn't call him a bad dog. After all he also endured lots of "love" from little girls, gave stuffed animals rides on his back, enjoyed his time on the couch, provided a source of comfort to his Mom and Dad when we needed a soft dog to sit or lay with, joined Jack in clearing the floor from the many food items dropped by little girls, greeted everyone with a tail wag (and an occasional jumping on by a 100 pound dog), and generally gave us a consistent presense of calm, joy and love. And because of all of these things, Peoopee was a good dog who did bad things.
Unfortunately I now speak in the past tense. Today we decided to euthanize our sweet coonhound. Unlike his mother and brother and Jack, Peoopee was pretty healthy. He never had surgery for a knee problem, stomach problem, or eye problem. He, like his mother and brother and sister, did require thyroid medicine. He also developed lots of fatty tumors. Some reaching golf ball, even orange size. But one tumor on his left side grew and grew and grew. When it was the size of a softball, we thought "Wow" that is really big. When it got to be the size of a cantalope, we thought "Yikes". But in the past months as it grew to the size of a watermelon, Peoopee had obvious discomfort. We started giving him daily pain meds back in November. Then we supplemented those pain meds with some narcotics back in January. As with all dogs with chronic illness, Peoopee had good days and bad days. But lately the good days were the ones when he came up the stairs before dinner time. The good times were when he would wag his tail. Just 2 weeks ago he and Jack enjoyed a long walk with me. But today on his last day, he enjoyed a walk, but it consisted of taking a few steps, then catching his breath. Taking a few more, then catching his breath. One thing that makes me the saddest is I can't remember the last time my coonhound (who always barked and barked and barked)...well, I can't remember the last time he barked.
Despite feeling so bad and being so tired and out of breathe all the time, yesterday Peoopee summoned the energy to snag a PB&J off the counter. So all was not lost. But although it was a difficult decision, our decision to send Peoopee on to the next life was the right one. I'm so thankful that he can now bark and bark and bark and will never be short of breathe again.
Call it coincidence, call it fate, call it weird or strange. This morning I got a call from Gram. Through her tears she let me know that Shelby, Peoopee's littermate, died early this morning. In some way it is comforting to know that
Peoopee, Shelby, Nuttin, Mars, Deohgee and Denuen are all running, barking, chasing racoons and other small animals all together somewhere.
The other day after putting Kelsey down for a nap, I was downstairs with Addison and Lily. Addison came from the kitchen and asked intently "Mommy, why is Jack on the table?" I peered in the kitchen and low and behold there was our little black coonhound standing on the kitchen table. It appeared that he then didn't know what to do (I mean after he ate every morsel of food available there). And, yes, today, Jack was once again up on the table.
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