A Faithful Friend Departed

Leo in the Grass
Originally uploaded by Photo Doocker.

Today, November 11, 2006 at 3:11pm, Jayla and I lost a faithful and beautiful member of our immediate family.

It has been an incredibly emotional and challenging day for us as Jayla and I knew what lay before us even before the day began. After breakfast we loaded Asher and Leo into the car and headed to the mountains just outside of Red Rocks Ampitheater in Morrison, CO. It was important to us to get Leo out for some fresh air and some moutain views before the afternoon.

I put the towel under Leo's belly as has been normal for us the past few weeks, because Leo was unable to walk on his own. I led him to a patch of grass from which we could see Red Rocks and the city of Denver in the horizon. It was as nice as spot as any. Leo chewed a rawhide we had given him and Asher ran around falling on Prickly Pear Cactus and enjoying the weather. Jayla and I focused soley on the dog. We sobbed as we looked through a photo album of Leo - pictures of him as a puppy, pictures of him frolicking in the snow, pictures of him loving life.

In just a few hours we would be heading to Alameda East Vet Hospital to put Leo to sleep. We made the final decision to put him down last Thursday as Leo's condition has steadily worsened over the past few weeks to the point he can't hold himself up while urinating. It was too much to bear for both us and him. And, yet, the picture above was just taken today at about 2pm. Look at him. He looks wonderful. Just thinking about putting him down has caused much pain and anguish for us for several weeks.


When we returned from the moutains, we mixed up some cement and made footprint impressions of Leo's front paws and cooked him a juicy NY strip steak. As per the usual, Leo didn't even chew the steak - he just inhaled it - it was fitting. We would have it no other way.

We sat with him for seemed like an eternity and then cautiously headed toward the car again for our trip to the vet. It was one of the strangest times in my life. To be driving down the road knowing what we were about to do was nothing less than surreal.

We arrived at the vet and I arranged to have a stretcher brought out to help Leo in. They immediately rolled him to the back as Jayla and I headed to the "comfort room". We cried as he was taken behind closed doors. The look on his face vividly reminded us of Dulles Airport on our way to Amsterdam. He had the same exact look when the airline workers rolled him behind closed doors to load him onto the plane. It was a look of wonder - wondering whether he would see us again. We did.

And we would see him again this time as well. We arranged his bed on the ground and slowly lowered him down to the floor. He was happy to be with us, content in the knowledge that we were there with him. Tears flowed from our eyes as we talked about all he has meant to us and the all the wonderful memories we have of him and with him. Memories like:

- hiking in Grand Gulch
- the trip to Amsterdam
- the way he would look for us when snowshoeing
- his huge feet (and his huge nostrils)
- his amber eyes and his wavy brown hair
- running with him on rainy days
- snuggling him during hard times
- him licking out of an ice cream bowl with Sam
- and many, many more

The doctor would enter about 20 minutes later and slowly inject him with a durg making him "fall asleep." That's just what he did. Slowly, he laid his big head on my right shoe as Jayla and I carressed his beautiful coat of curly dead grass fur. He breathed his last at about 3:11pm. It was one of the hardest moments of my life.

And at the same time, we feel so tremendously blessed to have experienced so much with Leo. We look upon his years with incredible fondness and will never forget him - never.