Satchel

There's a good chance that if you're reading this, you knew our dog Satchel or at least heard the stories about him. Tom had Satchel since he was about 6 months old. For many years, it was the 2 of them, and then since Tom and I got together 6 years ago, it's always been the three of us.

He was definitely a special needs dog. His circle of trust was small, problematically so as he always wanted to be leading the action. For those lucky to be in the circle, he was affectionate and always wanted to be close. He knew a lot of words so much so that we spelled most of the ones he knew to avoid a burst of unwanted excitement.

Tom and I had been slowly realizing that Satchel was becoming an old dog. His snoring had gotten loud at night, his coat greying, and he was having a hard time getting up. Still his energy and spirit always seemed puppy like. He'd had cancer right before we moved to Oregon 3 years ago, but we lived close to a veterinary oncologist (only in CA can such a situation occur), and they thought they'd gotten what they needed to.

In short, he starting showing active signs of illness quickly and Tom and I had to make decisions quickly regarding his care. An ultrasound showed he was full of cancer, and he was bleeding out a from a large tumor in his spleen. It was a question of when not whether things would end. We'd had to put down to sleep on July 3rd.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. Enjoy.