This has been a very difficult morning.
Many years ago, we adopted a stray dalmation. Hard to say his age. Older than a puppy...Maybe a year or two in age.
He had been terrorizing my daughter's friend's family because they had cats. They had threated to call the pound.
The problem was that he had not collar, seem to be beaten, and had a broken leg.We knew in our hearts that no one would adopt him.
My daughter begged me to take him and I did.
We took him to the vet, put a cast on his leg and nursed him back to health.
The weird thing about him is that although he was lovable to my dau and I, he hated men. I mean hated them. It took a long time for him accept my husband and son, but until old age set in, those were the only two men he gave a pass to. This, in some ways, came in handy. When my husband would work at night, I often felt kinda safe having this big male dalmation around. He stayed outside usually during the day. Outside, he had a big dog house under a tree. We kept him outside a lot because he was not fully housebroken. And if he got jealous of our other pets, he would sometimes "mark" furniture! However, we brought him inside during the day when the weather was bad, including very hot weather. I also brought him inside if I was frightened. He came inside at night and had this big thick rug he laid on under the piano. That was his Kingdom. He had a very "elegant" evening "dog house."

It's been well over a decade. He's had various health problems. He became deaf. He has had trouble seeing. The broken leg never healed correctly and he had great difficulty walking. This led to a bad hip problem. He's had trouble breathing lately. He lost total control of his toiletry habits. His pain has increased in recent weeks and he has been wimpering...which is unusual for him.

This morning, we had him put to sleep. We waited for the doctor to give him the first shot to relax him. We told him that we loved him and he was a good boy. Then we left. It has been very hard and we have not stopped crying.


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We do have his collar and I am wondering what others have done to memoralize their lost pets.