Arlo

Yesterday it was time to put Arlo to sleep. Steph and I took him to Adam's so the kids could say goodbye, then we took him to the vet and let him go.

To understand what this meant to me you have to understand my relationship with significant dogs in my life. There was the boxer we had in Topeka until I was 4 years old...he was such a non-presence that he didn't move with us to Kansas, and the only memories I have are from the pictures. There was the little dog next door who bit me on Thanksgiving one year as I played in the street. There was the dalmation who attacked me on my paper route and would have torn my throat out if I hadn't gotten my arm in the way. Then there were my grandparent's various moderately-insane boxers I dreaded being in the same room with every Thanksgiving in McPherson. Because of these early examples I was afraid of dogs until 2001 or so...that was when I met Freckles, Sarah's dog, and decided that canines as a whole maybe weren't entirely evil. Freckles was still kind of there but not terribly significant. She lived w/ Sarah's parents and I saw her occasionally, but that was it. In my years in Oklahoma I took her for one walk, and that was to escape the house on Christmas one year.

Then there was Arlo. He was there early on when Stephanie and I started doing things outside of work hours. He went on those early hikes with us, and watched us fall in love. He was the only other living creature on the trail with us when I asked Stephanie to marry me. He was there the night we got married, sleeping in the car as we signed on the dotted line and panting on the floor of the pet-friendly Loews Cherry Creek when we slept that night. He was the first dog I ever let out to pee at 3 am, picked up poop for, fed, watered, petted endlessly, snuggled with on the couch, told to shut up at 5 am, and took for more than one walk. He was the first dog I ever referred to as "mine," and the first dog (second animal) that I would say I loved.

It was his time to go. There is no doubt about that. In the past couple weeks he stopped eating his dog food, then ground beef, then the chicken thighs I boiled for him. He started falling on the hardwood floors and gave up on climbing the stairs under his own power. For the last days of his life Stephanie and I had to carry him up and down the stairs so he could be near us when we slept. The decision that is was time to do the humane thing had to be Stephanie's, but I didn't realize how much it would affect me until it had been made. Arlo was a wonderful dog, and a loving member of my new family. I loved him and I miss him, and it will be a long time before I stop shuffling my feet in the dark so I don't accidentally step on his massively sprawled paws. The old boy is in a better place now, but that doesn't mean it was any easier to let go.

This post needs a picture. This is Arlo, smiling approvingly (in my mind) from the back of the CR-V on the night we were married: