I have had a job where I work from home since around October of 2012. I had my dog Diesel since around October of 2009. My daughter brought him to our apartment where we were not supposed to have dogs. We trained him not to bark though there was something unusual about him because this proved to be easy to do. We bought our house in 2010 and Diesel came with us and became my dog, and my constant companion. He had a yard in Denver that was rather small and for most of his life that is all he knew. At the beginning of September we moved to Missouri with a much larger house, 4 acres, and a pond. I have done posts about it here before. I walked this property daily with Diesel 3 or more times every day and he absolutely loved it. He required no leash. He was hands down the most well behaved and friendly dog I have ever seen. I know a lot of people say such things. He was exceptional enough that it was not uncommon for people to comment about how unusual he was. Barking was virtually unheard of and in his 12 years of life I heard him bark briefly one little "woof" maybe a dozen times. The only other time he barked was when he was sleeping and dreaming. We'd hear him bark while enjoying his dreams.
This was my dog. He was hands down the best dog I have ever had. At the moment I am devastated and tears are running down my cheeks and mingling with my beard as I write this.
I had to do this. I had to write about my dog. There was something almost magical about him.
I spoke to him and had conversations every day and he was just happy and wagged his tail and smiled at me in his own way as I spoke to him. He didn't care what I said because he was just happy I was talking to him. His tail, his ears, and his smiles would show me.
I will talk about more pleasant memories I hope after I get out what happened today. I want to write it.
My daily routine since we moved to Missouri is to wake up between 7:30am and 8:00am. Diesel would watch me to see if I was grabbing my phone, clothes, and other things. For him that was a the cue for an impending walk. He would get up and run down the stairs and start whining excitedly. He'd be prancing back and forth waiting for me to put on my shoes, jacket, etc.
I'd leave by a usual pattern that took me on a loop around my property with the last part of the loop always being near the road so I could look for litter and clean it up. He would run along with me the entire way. He would occasionally lag behind for a moment while some smell excited him. He was constantly excited by smells. In fact he was so excited by smells that he missed the deer that ran in front of us TWICE. He missed the badger that I saw by the pond that scooted away into the trees in front of us. It was good he didn't try to chase that. He missed a bird a couple of times. He missed a squirrel before as well. He would be close by when I saw these things but his nose would be sniffing the ground or a bush. All of these new smells were so much different from the back yard in Denver. He was sensing things I could not.
Yesterday the day went as normal. Nothing seemed unusual. He was given some treats by a neighbor that loves him and watches us walk, and he'd been eating some new treats for a couple of weeks at our house too.
This morning when I got up he was already downstairs. My father in-law is up way before me. I noticed Diesel was watching me but he was shuffling around slowly and he wasn't whining with the usual excitement to go outside.
I said "Let's go" and went out the door and I proceeded to watch him slowly walk out the door. I walked to the nearby dairy barn and he just slowly walked there even though I was walking slow. I knew something was wrong so I walked back to the house. I waited for him to catch up and come in side.
I was thinking of how stiff he was and he is old so I was expecting problems but the change from yesterday to today was extreme and sudden.
We took him to the vet. He walked stiffly in the vet. They found some indicators he may be having kidney problems though his liver results in his blood seemed okay. They asked us if he could have gotten into anything or have been poisoned. The path we walk that is pretty much impossible to occur. We have some black walnut husks so I mentioned those and the vet said that wouldn't cause this. This was sudden. They gave us some anti-biotics and we got home.
I had to hold his mouth open and force it into his throat and then massage his throat to get him to take it. He would drink some water. Then we noticed he was having trouble walking and his back legs were acting like they wouldn't respond to him anymore.
We called the vet again to report this and they indicated that there were some signs he might have some nerve damage that could explain that which is not surprising in an older dog. Yet it doesn't explain his sudden loss of ability to move his back legs properly.
He then would try to move around to get water. I was upstairs and my wife said he tried to move to the stairs like he wanted to come up here with me. I went down and with help carried him up here. He was around 85 pounds.
He was having trouble getting positioned up here though he seemed happy to be up here and would occasionally wag his tail as I spoke to him. Then he started having his front legs kick like a seizure and he was starting to arch a little and look back. This was not good. His breathing was labored. My wife got on the phone with the vet.
Then his breathing changed and came in different intervals. This is something I know of as agonal breathing (spelling may be incorrect). It is what comes before death. I've seen it before when my father passed. My wife told the vet it was already too late as we could see him dying and we got off the phone. I had my arms around him and was petting him. We got ahold of my boys that live with us and they all were up in my room with me. I had my arms around him when he took his last breath.
I didn't have to take him to a vet to be put to sleep. That opportunity was not something we considered as after visiting the vet we had hope he was going to get better.
With the sudden onset of this we suspect accidental poisoning. We don't know if perhaps the new treats he had been eating for two weeks were the problem. If they were you would think it would have been noticeable within the last few weeks unless just certain pieces were poisoned. The only other thing was the treats from the neighbor. We do not think she would intentionally have ill will towards the dog. In fact she said he was her favorite person over here. If it came from her it would have been those treats whether a problem where they came from or perhaps set down somewhere and exposed to something. We are not going to mention this to her. We do not want to destroy her or hurt her. We also don't know. Right now I am struggling with the fact my dog was alive, happy, and frolicking with me yesterday and now he is dead.
My son Nathan and my wife went and dug a hole on our property and we took him out to it in a wheelbarrow wrapped in a blanket. No one seemed to think it was odd as they drove by that people were digging a hole in the open under the cover of darkness as no one stopped. We buried my dog. I have cried off and on numerous times since he passed.
Diesel was a one of a kind dog. I don't know that with good training I can ever produce another dog quite like him.
I'd make up songs for my dog and sing them to him. Here is a common one...
That's my dieso he's my dog
he's my dieso dog.
dieso, dieso, dieso, is the dieso dogThat's my bobe my dieso bobe
he's my dieso bobe.
bobe, bobe, my dieso bobe
that's my dieso bobe."
I will be a bit broken for awhile. It was sudden and he died in my arms. He was definitely one of my best friends. He was my family.
So let me tell you a bit about this dog and I plan to put some images and such in this post. This is for me. It is something I need to do. Yet I am also sharing a very personal moment with anyone that reads this.
I loved my dog.
I mentioned he would not bark. I also really didn't need a leash for him anywhere. A simple change of tone in my voice would stop him in his tracks and he would come back to my side. He also learned borders very well and honored them. I had no concerns of him getting into the street as he avoided them like a barrier was in place.
I would use a leash and harness for him outside of the house mainly because it is what society expected.
This dog had a very large vocabulary. He also responded to some gestures. I suspect at some point he learned some spellings for words too. My wife and I would get in the habit of spelling out T R E A T so he wouldn't get overly excited and W A L K but over time he seemed to learn what those spellings were as well.
I could tell him to "Go get Debbie", "Go get Gydion", etc. and he'd wander off to visit whomever I was talking about.
Wonderful dog.
I will get another dog eventually. There will never be another Diesel. I plan to get a tombstone for him to put over where we buried him. To me he is the most well behaved dog I have ever known. My son Nathan said that is because "he thought he was human."
That is likely true. I treated him a lot like a human as well. In fact, I probably spoke to him more than I do anyone else in my family, more than with anyone I work with, and more than any of my friends.
I am in mourning. This is my catharsis and my chance to enshrine my dog Diesel in the blockchain.
He is now buried right where the tip of that non-mowed section of grass in front of him that looks like a triangle is at. His grave is at the tip of that triangle.
He was a chow and black lab mix.
That is a photo showing most of the yard he had access to for the majority of his life. I can say he has loved the last few months of his life.
Sitting on my bed in Denver with a stack of Dell PowerEdge servers in boxes behind him that I need to assemble. Giving me that "what is all this crap on the bed" look.
EDIT: Next day - I know this post is long but I went through some more photos and I want to add them here.
I sent an IM to work where I was chatting with my boss who is great with dogs. The IM was sent at 7:34pm CST and that was within a minute or two after he died.
Near the apple tree before the deer managed to destroy them. I'd tell him "Diesel don't pee on my tree" as we walked until that morning I found the trees destroyed. All that got out of my mouth that day was "Diesel don't..."
That one is one of my favorites that I've found and it is very near his grave.
The grave...
We plan to get a little fence around it and a headstone. Today is just another day for tears and remembrance. I will walk by him several times a day. He just no longer will be physically there with me.
That last photo I just found. A photo of him alive where his grave is now at.