Fat Boy, 1994-2007

Our family dog died yesterday. His name was Shadow but we called him Fat Boy. He was 13 years old.

Fat Boy was suffering for a while with severe hip dysplasia. Over Thanksgiving last year, he was outside playing with my parent's other two dogs Little Man and Max, and Fat Boy couldn't walk back up the hill so my brother had to go down and carry him up. Some days were good days, but some were really bad.

My parents were both at work yesterday and the dogs were in the house alone for about 6 hours. When my dad got home, Max and Little Man kept walking to the basement steps. My dad walked over there, and Fat Boy was laying at the bottom of the steps. He must have fallen down them sometime during the day. He didn't move, so my dad picked him up and carried him upstairs and then took him to the vet.

Fat Boy was one of the funniest puppies ever. He used to eat EVERYTHING - shoes, clothes, he chewed up the side of my parent's deck. One of my favorite stories is when he would creep into a room, and he knew he did something bad, he would always keep his head down and try to look innocent. He came into the living room one day like that, and when I offered him a toy, would NOT open his mouth. My dad had to pry the dog's mouth open and when he did, pennies were everywhere - Shadow was knawing on a penny roll and it was like a slot machine was coming out of his mouth!

Then there was the summer he decided to dig holes in the backyard and they were so big he would get down into them to lay down. He was always a funny dog. He was also well-behaved, and liked to sleep with you whenever he had the chance.

The picture above was just taken on Easter when we visited. The irony is that he looks so alert here because he was protecting the house that day from a neighbor's dog. I hadn't seen him that alert in a long time.

R.I.P. Fat Boy!