Our boy...

 

I still remember that St. Patty's day when I walked into the garage at Ricky's house. He said to me, "I got you a present."... 

When he pointed under the truck, I bent down to take a look and I saw the cutest sight I had ever seen. A small black puppy with a white chest and three white paws, with a can of food stuck on his head (his favorite thing to do). I pulled the can off his head and...

My attraction for this dog came long before he was even born. One of Ricky's friends and his girlfriend actually owned his father. When we would go over to thier house, this HUGE pit bull would come over and rest his head on my lap. I LOVED the fact that he had a huge head and most would fear him, but in fact he was such a gentle thing. I told Ricky that I really wanted a dog just like him. So when they had their first litter and he saw that one of the dogs looked EXACTLY like big King... that would be our boy! Hence the name for our baby... Lil King.

Our love for him grew so fast. And the pain that comes along with loving something so much was shown to us not long after he came into our family. He became VERY sick at about 8 weeks old... my mom had had a puppy that died from parvo and it was what she had first suspected. We took him into our vet, and sure enough... he tested positive for the puppy killer disease. Come to find out, his whole litter had actually come down with it (a nurse that had a puppy die from parvo not to long before came and visited the litter wanting to buy one and forgot that the disease it VERY contagious... not a very bright nurse if you ask me). So we had to make a decision early on if we could afford to pay for the treatment to try and save our little guy (even though the odds were against him). That was an easy decision for us, and after two blood transfusions from our Vets own pit bull and a month or so in the hospital... HE SURVIVED... even to the amazement to all who worked at the veternary clinic.

As the years passed, he was our everything. I would take him EVERYWHERE with me. He loved the usual that any dog did, jogs, bike rides. He also was one to eat everything in site... some of the most amazing things we would find he digested straight through him (a par of my underwear, sticks, balls, you name it... he chewed it up! And this proved not to be just a puppy thing for him!). 

My love for him as his mother was unending. You know how I had said that I loved the fact that he was huge and yet so gentle... I did, but at times it would be exausting having to defend my love for him. He would constantly be judged by his breed and his "look". He taught me a lot about people. It was amazing to me the people who wouldn't judge him... usually the very young (who haven't learned how to judge yet) and the elderly (who have learned that there is no need to judge). None the less, I would still get those who would run the other direction if they saw us jogging past. I would be lying if I said at times it didn't make me upset, because all I saw was his big teddy bear eyes and huge heart, after all he was my baby. BUT this is one of the reasons why I was so proud to have him. For those who got the chance to get past his "stereotype" and see his true beauty, I felt it was a wake up call for many. And I like to think that he taught so many NOT TO JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER!

This judgment grew even stronger once we started to have kids. I had one patient who would come in for her teeth cleaning every 3 months and ask me if my dog had hurt my kids yet! Being a professional I would let all my patients know that although we weren't stupid parents and always monitored our dog and kids play time together (I would with ANY dog, all dogs have teeth and have the potential to bite), that I fully trusted this dog with my kids. In fact, he had proved to be the best dog around them. It is a proven fact to be honest with you, that pit bulls (before "BAD" people gave them a "BAD" name) are actually one of the best breeds for children. With a high pain tollerance and calm demeanor, they let kids pull on thier ears and jump on them as kids will. And he proved those true roots of a pit bull to be just that...100%  TRUE. My kids LOVED King and would do just that to him. They played with him all the time, and he NEVER (not once) showed any aggression towards them!

King was such a great part of our family. He had the softest furr you would ever touch. A silky coat that never shed. A calm demeanor, but I swear he could pick out a "bad" person when he saw them. A gorgeous huge block head, with these beautiful teddy bear eyes that would melt my heart. He would tease you with that beautiful face of his... come up all gentle and then move his butt towards you, no matter how much you wanted to love on that face, he ALWAYS wanted his butt scratched! =) He would be lazy with me when it was time. He could jog with the best of them. He would waller with the kids. And let his little sister Sugar tug on his ears and just plain ol torment him. He was always there to lick my tears if I was sad....

 

... there have been so many times that I have just longed for him to be here now to lick my tears, because I have not cried this much in a very long time (Ricky either). Last month Ricky noticed that King was not eating quite right, our first thought was that he ate something he shouldn't have (a problem we had had with King from a puppy and had been to the vet many times before to find wood peices, plastic peices... and the last one was a baseball that the neighbor accidentally threw over the fence while we weren't home.) all things that they put him on a special diet and he eventually passed. So naturally we started him on the diet. Sadly the diet was not working and we noticed his stomach starting to get hard. We immediately called the vet and scheduled a visit that Sat morning. When we went in the vet took one look at him and told me he was going to do an ultrasound... hmmm I thought, that's odd... they usually just take an x-ray and see what it was he ate and tell us if we need to operate to get it out or if he should be able to just pass it?!? He came back into me lonely in the room and gave me the BAD news... "King has a tumor... it was on his spleen and has fluid around it. We need to do surgery if you guys can afford it. This surgery can go one of two ways, it can be benign... we remove it and the spleen and King will live a full life and die of something else, NOT CANCER. -OR- we get in there and it is a hemangiosarcoma in which case it usually spreads to the liver quickly and King will not live to much longer at all. Either way, I want you to say your goodbyes this weekend just in case."
 It never crossed our minds to not do the surgery, we would do ANYTHING for our boy... but that night and Sunday were VERY hard to say the least. King was by our side 24-7. My mom and sisters came down to lay with him for a while too. But in the back of my mind I just kept thinking positive thoughts... after all, he had survived soooo many things. Monday morning came and Ricky and I dropped him off. I thought to myself... well after today I should be comforted that no matter what, he wouldn't be in any pain anymore. We have such an amazing family and soooo many people praying for our puppy. But 11:45 rolled around and I recieved THAT CALL from Dr. Grover. The fact that he had called me himself sent chills in my spine when I heard his voice, "I don't have good news for King." My heart sank! "It has gone to the liver and spleen and has spread even further to the lymph nodes and is just everywhere." I start sobbing and Ricky too... we still asked, of course," what if we chose to still wake him up and bring him home for a bit"... "then you would be putting him down again in a couple days." And there it was, our baby was gone. Ricky and I picked him up and buried him in our backyard under our white Alder tree. (an experience I have never had before either, HARD to say the least. I fell to my knees when we laid him next to "his spot" and sobbed... "My beautiful boy!")  

 

In the weeks past we have gone through many different emotions... missing him is mainly what we are doing. I have cried so hard to where my heart actually hurts. I know that as a dog owner you need to expect this day, but we just didn't expect it so early, nor in this way (not that I think it would have been easier any other way) this is the part of owning a dog that just plain old sucks. We wouldn't take back ANY moment of our time with him though. He made our lives that much better!

We have had so many sweet gifts from family and friends... even cards from some of my patients. This was a frame from Kathie (she also got us Kings rock).

... and my sweet sister Kate sent me this on instagram... along with so many of our loved ones commenting and texting us sweet words that helped us cope with all of this, we love you all and THANK YOU for your comforting thoughts at this time. 

This is Karly and Abby's first experience with heaven and losing something we love so much. Karly asked me, "Mom, where did King go?" I said, "He went to heaven baby." She says, "Well did they take the basketball out of his stomach?"..."Yes they did baby, he feels much better now." She still kind of looks at us like, I don't get why you are crying if he feels so much better and is in Heaven =) The joy of seeing things through a childs eyes! She is such a sweetie, when we cry she just comes up and gives us a hug... "don't worry mom/dad we will see him tomorrow."

SOOOOO until our "tomorrow" comes to see our Kinger again, we will just remember so many great times with such a special boy. I prayed to Grandma June, that if my boy was coming to see her that night instead of me, to please cook him a big steak... so comforting to know he is not in pain anymore and running around with some of our best right now.

In loving memory of our King.