We Said Goodbye to Scooter

I could have sworn that I blogged about this already, but I think this was actually what caused me to stop blogging.

I downloaded the pictures from my cell phone the other day and found these. They made me cry all over again.

Last September, our super-loved 7 year old Boxer, Scooter, began tripping and walking into things. That was a Wednesday.

By Friday, he couldn’t stand upright without support. The local vet recommended we take him to UC Davis for further testing.

The next Tuesday we had an appt for him to go to the neurologist at the UC Davis Vet hospital. I couldn’t go to the appointment with Doyle because I really did not want to know what was happening. This was our first “oldest son”. This is the dog that would throw dog toys into DJ’s playpen to help try to stop DJ from crying when he was an infant. This is the dog that would run to whomever was crying to comfort them by laying his head on your lap. The same dog that growled at us at 9 pm if we didn’t stop talking and let him go to sleep. The dog that weighed 92 pounds yet thought he was a lap dog.

I vividly remember the call from Doyle. The neurologist believed that Scooter had a brain tumor. His quick deterioration was not a good sign. We knew what the next step had to be, but we prolonged it.

He came home and cuddled with his favorite goose. (We had to put his snow boots on him to help him walk around the house. It had “grippies” on the bottom and helped prevent him from sliding on the floor.)

We babied him. We always have. Even the kids babied him.

Cody could see all the attention that we were giving Scooter and I am sure he knew something was wrong. Every chance he had he would go up to Scooter and hug him.

  

It was heartbreaking to see the misery in Scooter’s eyes. He never made a peep to show he was in pain, but you could see it in his eyes that he just wasn’t the same.

We had scheduled an appointment for him for Friday to put him to sleep because it was to the point that he couldn’t stand, sit or lay down without falling over and needing assistance.

Thursday night, we all said our goodbyes to Scooter. (This is making me cry all over again!) I grabbed my camera phone and started snapping away as all my boys bonded one last time.

The most heartbreaking of it all was DJ. We found him laying in his bed with the covers over his head silently crying. When we asked him why he was crying all he could say was “I’m going to miss him”. Throughout the week, DJ had not said a word to us about Scooter. He wouldn’t even talk about it. It broke our hearts to see him so upset about it.

We asked him if he wanted to lay with Scooter and cuddle with him one last time. The two have been sharing Scooter’s bed since DJ could crawl. Even within the last year we would find DJ (and now Cody) laying in Scooter’s bed with him.

Our poor guy fell asleep crying next to Scooter.

 

Even Xena came over to say goodbye. These two slept together every night. We usually found her in his bed instead of her own.

We haven’t gotten used to either of them being gone. (Especially since we still find their hair laying around the house and Scooter’s hair in the car! :) ) The house is quiet without Xena constantly meowing at us. There is no dog’s head on my lap to comfort me as I grieve for them. Yes, they are pets, but more than anything they were part of our family.

We miss Scooter and Xena A LOT and even made sure they celebrated Christmas with us