Goodbye, My Friend

Today, Llewy was euthanized. It’s already weird being in our house without him. Always, his presence warmed my heart. To suddenly be without him…. well I guess that’s why I’m writing this goodbye to him now. So I don’t have to lose the idea of him yet, even if he is gone.

Llewy balanced me, when I didn’t know that I needed to be balanced. His unconditional love, spirit, and stubbornness, often reminded me of how to be the person that I wanted to be. Every dog is an emotional support dog, and Llewy was mine. Brenna would often say that he was my spirit animal, and that’s true. Having him in our family for these years made me a better person.

My spirit is dampened due to his loss, but what I learned from Llewy will live beyond the sorrow. When I had no one else, Llewy was there. When I needed someone to hold, Llewy was there. When I just needed to be with someone else, Llewy was there. I’ll never know if he knew when I needed him or not, but he was always there. Just his being there, and his irrepressible attitude while he was there, eased so much pain in my life. Llewy made it easier to process all the things I have gone through in the last 10+ years. He made it easier to make the choices in my life that I needed to make.

He made it easier when I got laid off. He made it easier when Brenna and I weren’t seeing eye to eye. He made it easier to raise two daughters. He made it easier to buy a house, and move to a (relatively) new region. Llewy made it easier to quell the demons that have always been in my mind.

The first weekend we had him, we took him on a walk from our apartment in Campbell to downtown. Traffic literally stopped in the middle of the road when people saw him – I think shortly after we took the picture above. He was the cutest puppy ever. I’m slightly biased. When we got to downtown, where there was a farmer’s market that day, a crowd of about 30 people gathered around to see him.

I’ll never forget the day we got him. He was sad to leave his family, but after he had been with us for a few hours, his personality came through. I think it was at least a year before I was sure that he wanted to be with us.

He always found comfort in my feet, from the first day we had him to the last day of his life.

Llewy was great with babies. He was always patient, always protective. He put up with so much from Ember when she was a baby, and was always sweet with Ash. With kids, Llew wasn’t so great. Thankfully he didn’t nip at their heels, but he didn’t appreciate them running around or any roughhousing of any kind.

Here is one of the few photos of Llewy and Ash. She obviously won’t remember him.

Llew once ate half a pound of Starburst. We came home (I thought I had left the Starburst out of reach) and found him, on the floor next to a chewed through bag, so bloated. No matter how many times I took him out to walk and get things moving, he only barfed in the house. Reddish, sticky, watery goo came out of him – with Starburst wrappers. It was truly awful. I don’t think that carpet ever recovered.

There was the time he and Nacho got kennel cough from eating horse poop and dead crabs on a beach in SF. There was the time he got stung by a bee and his nose got all swollen – that happened when he got his vaccines as well. There were the many times he knocked over someone’s drink at a party so he could drink it himself. There was the time he ran through downtown Boulder Creek, and we found him eating garbage out of the dumpster by the old brewery. Or when we pulled him out of herding lessons because he lost interest in herding the sheep, preferring to just eat their poop. Before it became clear that the degenerative myelopathy was going to take him, Brenna and I really thought that he would manage to eat himself to death.

I love that picture above of Ash and Llewy. It really captures the dignity with which he finished his life.

He had no fear. The only thing I remember Llewy ever being afraid of was power outages (of all things). Bigger dogs, people, cars, nothing else I ever saw him back down from. Such a great lesson for life. Here he is, I managed to get a selfie of him when the power went out in our house:

Llewy was a great pack dog, even if he wasn’t totally happy with additions to the pack. He watched out for all of us, and helped us train our new puppy in the last year of his life.

Llewy helped me to be whole. I had no idea a dog could do that before him. I feel like I could go on forever, but being that he has only been dead an hour and a half or so as I’m writing this, I think I’m going to stop writing for now. I may very well write more about him in the future as I’m processing his departure.

One more thing. Here are the photos from his last trip to the beach, the day before he died. I’ve never been able to take selfies with him, and yesterday was no different. He did get to dig in the sand one last time, something he loved to do. There were also a few dogs there, and I got to see how social he wanted to be as he dragged his back end across the beach to see them.

More photos:

Goodbye, Llewy. You were my rock. I will miss you dearly, and I will always carry you in my soul. What you did for me and our family is immeasurable. In my heart, you will always be by my side.