jesse

jesse

jesse & hobbs

it was a sad day on the island yesterday. we had to put one of our dogs to sleep. we noticed a couple of weeks ago he was limping. he had done this before a long time ago. he had jumped out of the back of the officer's truck and landed on his shoulder (crazy dog). it turned out his shoulder was just inflamed. they gave him a shot and medicine and that seemed to work.

this time we made an appointment with the vet. by the time the appointment came around, jesse could hardly walk. we had to bring him his food. however, he never seemed like he was in pain and he never became grumpy or mean toward the kids.

the officer and the kids took him to the vet. when the vet checked him out, he noticed a large tumor on jesse's shoulder. he decided to take x-rays and do some tests. it turned out jesse had a tumor on his shoulder, in his lungs and somewhere else. he had a bacterial infection in his blood and all his lymph nodes were enlarged. the officer asked if there was anything we could do and the vet said, "if you had a million dollars you could extend his life for a couple more months, but that's it."

jesse was about 13 years old i think. the officer and i got him from second chance. we went to wal-mart one afternoon, and second chance had their adopt-a-thon going on. it was a 72 hour event. they stayed in a field by wal-mart for the whole 72 hours so people could play with and adopt the dogs. we went just to see what it was and left with jesse.

we think jesse may have been abused by a man with a stick of some sort at some point in his puppy life because he would freak out any time he saw a man (other than the officer) with a stick. jesse was a watch dog. in our first house, we lived close by a school that had a huge field. jesse loved running in that field. mostly he loved just hanging out with the officer. jesse hated thunderstorms. when we lived in our old house, the officer was in the shed working on his motorcycle. it was raining and the thunder clapped so loud it shook our house. it sounded like an explosion. ever since then jesse has not liked thunderstorms or thunder. he knows not to come in the house, but when it rained, he would try to see if we'd let him in. when our kids came along, he kind of just tolerated them. he didn't know what to make of these small humans. however, i am sure my daughter won his heart over. even after he bit her when she grabbed his rawhide, she still loved him. this past week jesse would just wag his tail and lay down when the kids came over to love on him. my daughter took the picture at the top of the post of jesse last week.

we'll miss you jesse.