Rest In Peace ~ Reggie

Reggie was our beloved fat little poodle. He came to live with us in the spring of 2004, we found him through a really great organization called Lost Paws, he was 6-7 years old at the time. So, we have had a wonderful 6 years with him.

Reggie was best known for his smile, and lovely disposition, not to mention his laziness and LOVE of the garbage and all food that was within reach. Hot dogs especially added to his curvaceous figure. Reg was a great dog, he hardly barked, needed little attention, was really good about his house training habits and he NEVER jumped up on people. He actually really liked other dogs. Once he even invited a stray dog into our house, which was so nice of him, since a HUGE snow storm was coming in and the poor stray probably would have froze to death. Reggie earned his keep by making sure that my floors were always very clean. "No crumb of food left behind!" Was his mantra.

In the weeks leading up to Reggie's final day, he had started to pee all over my house, this was not like him. I didn't even realize it was pee at first because when I cleaned it up I thought it was sprite, which was strange because we didn't have any in the house. It was clear and VERY sticky. He was obviously peeing out a lot of sugar. He was also drinking incessantly. I would wager to guess that my 14 pound dog was drinking about a gallon of water a day.

After we had him diagnosed by the vet, I just couldn't put him down, he was still happy. Other than needing to drink a lot, he seemed pretty normal. I borrowed a crate from my sister-in-law and had him in it when we weren't home and at night. This solved the peeing in the house problem, so we figured that we would just let him live for as long as he could. Even though I was getting up 2 times a night to let him out, I still couldn't find it in my heart to let him die.

The day we decided to have Reggie put down was emotionally harder than I ever thought it was going to be. Poor Reggie, he had probably had some sort of retinal bleed that caused sudden and total blindness. He was walking into walls, furniture and toys. He couldn't figure out how to go up and down the stairs. He would stand at the bottom of the stairs, stand up on the first one and then back up and try to get enough courage to climb them. This went on and on until we finally helped him up or down. It was so sad. We told the kids that we were going to take him in, they cried, I cried, Hal cried. Hal always tried to act all macho, like this wouldn't bother him, that it would actually be a relief. When it came down to it, Hal probably had the hardest time of us all. I called in the morning for an appointment, it wasn't until 3:30pm, so we sat around and held Reggie, let him have some goodies. And then Hal went out back to dig a grave in the field. Trenton took poor Reg out to play and Reggie walked right off the edge and into the ditch. This is when I knew we were doing the right thing. Trenton decided to go with Hal when they took Reggie. I am not sure if this was a mistake or not. When the got back with "the box", Trenton was bawling. Hal was bawling. It was really sad. For some unknown reason, Hal decide to remove Reggie's body from the box and unwrap him from his blanket to bury him. Not the best decision, the poor guy had nightmares and couldn't get the image of his lifeless body out of his head.

We have all missed our Reggie, we hope that he is enjoying his afterlife, that it is full of hot dogs and lots of table scraps. We know that is what really made him happiest.