My big boy, Caleb, started breathing oddly yesterday and we took him to the pet ER last night. It turned out he had metastasized heart and lung cancer with internal bleeding and we made the horribly painful decision to let him go this morning. Aside from his struggle to breathe there were no signs anything was wrong.
Caleb was rescued by a good samaritan who found him running down the middle of 86th street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A network of folks took him in, had him neutered, and put out feelers for adoption: we took him. He was a medium-sized puppy with big brown eyes and beautiful gold brindle stripes against dark brown fur – wherever we walked people would stop and ask to hug him, he was that cute.
Eight months later he doubled in size and sprouted a kind of faux-hawk down his back, long silky fur strands on his ears, and a glorious beard. We did his DNA and he turned out to be 50% Bouvier des Flandres with the other 50 being pit bull, wolfhound, and miscellaneous. He was a one of a kind in every sense
As of last week he was approx 5 years old and 110 pounds of love. He was still stunningly cute. He loved to lie in our arms, be upside down with all his paws in the air, and was so very patient and loving with our 10-month-old yellow lab. I’ll miss him lying across my legs at night in bed so I couldn’t turn or stretch out.
We’re devastated. On Saturday our beloved brindle boy was running around the yard stealing all the other dogs’ tennis balls and now he is just gone.
Rest in peace, our sweet, sweet Caleb boy. Thank you for sharing your all too short life with us.
I am so sorry for your loss. Your love for your big boy shines through in every word of your post. As a lifelong fan of the big paws, I’ve always thought it was so unfair that the bigger they grow, the shorter their lives.
Thanks, all, for the kind words. As do most folks (I imagine), I question if we should have done all we could – but the docs said that even with chemo he had four months at the most and they probably wouldn’t be pleasant months. We didn’t want him to suffer.
Setters: The cardio and oncology specialists were a bit surprised that he was only five-years-old; I know big paws have shorter lives, I just wasn’t prepared for something like this to happen so soon and so quickly. We have a border collie who is almost 15 years-old, I would never have thought Caleb would be the first to leave us.
One of the heartbreaks is our lab puppy’s loss of her big bro. She would sleep in his arms on the couch and he loved it when she groomed his ears and beard.
Oh, Jennshark! I’m so very sorry to read this. My heart is just breaking for you. It is hard enough to lose them when they’ve had chance to grow old, or if you’ve had time to process that they are ill and will eventually succumb. I can only imagine how hard it was to lose Caleb suddenly like this. Please feel certain you did the right thing. Better a bit early, that waiting and have them suffer.
Five years is way too short. I’m so sorry for your loss of Caleb.
This is one of my two favortie dog poems by Kipling. It’s “His Apologies”, and it takes a dog from puppyhood to the end When my dog Nathan goes I’m going to have the first line of the poem engraved on a stone for his grave.
I’m very sorry for your loss. Our dog has cancer also, and it is hard to see her deteriorate, and also so hard to let go. I’m sure you made a good decision for Caleb.
