Bye Baby...

Yesterday Adam, our 20-year-old who is in the Marines, arrived from South Carolina. At dinner Penny took a phone call, then returned to the table and turned to Adam with a very serious look on her face. She told him that the vet had called her back and that the two of them had agreed that Baby, our 18-year-old Australian Shepherd/Cocker Spaniel mix, needed to be put down.

Adam was taken aback for a second by the abruptness, but agreed that it was for the best. Baby was Adam's (and essentially our four year old Rachel's) dog. So Baby had been around Adam for almost his entire life.

Baby has always been a quirky dog. He is (was) a beautiful mixture of Australian and Cocker, black and white, and very bossy. He would "talk" to people who came into our house, which could be off-putting because it sounded somewhat like growling. He hated to have his feet touched and didn't trust adult males, which was probably because of the abuse he suffered when he was a puppy. We had to get heavy water and food dishes to stop him from tossing them in the air to get us to fill them when they were empty.

Penny and Adam went to pick up a present for Adam's lifelong friend Luke's dog Sophie 16 years ago, and came home with a rescue dog. Luke was at the house last night and there were plenty of stories.

Baby was a smelly, grumpy old man the past few years (126 human years, to use the seven-year formula). He needed dental work and was arthritic. Penny was hoping that she would come downstairs some morning and find him gone, but it didn't happen.

I, because I was up early and on-duty when I came home from work, walked him with Rachel and let him out a lot. Rachel really took ownership of Baby. I mentally, and sometimes verbally, groused a lot about him. But his death is going to leave a big hole for such a little dog.