Curtdog

Please excuse my blog break. We've had a tough few weeks here, with Rylan having bronchiolitis, Max with not one, but two ear infections, return of Death Fever pain, and the death of our pooch.

Rob and I lost our firstborn furbaby a little over a week ago. Curt. Or Curtdog as we'd taken to calling him lately. He was such a sweet and happy dog. Always ready to chase and be chased, super good at catching balls, begging and rolling over. He would do any trick for some of your leftover popcorn. And boy did he live. 16 years. Thats 112 in people years. And, yet, we were still shocked at his death, simply because Curt has fought through some nasty stuff for the past few years and come out shining and happy every time. Frankly, I was starting to think he would outlive all of us.

Here are some of our favorite stories about our fluffy friend

-He loved to run away, not because he didn't like us, he just really liked a good adventure. He was always super excited when we found him.

-He had been trained to "speak" (bark) on command, Rylan loved to say "peek!" at him and throw him a treat. Curt had recently learned that Rylan gives treats even if you don't actually DO a trick.

-One time Curt ran away from Rob's house in Mountain Home, made it to the town square, hopped through an open window into the backseat of a car and partook in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken they had in there.

-Another time Curt ran away and returned a few hours later with a ham off of someone's grill in his mouth.

-The dog loved a good car ride. We always said he would have been an awesome dog for a truck driver. I wish ANYTHING made me as happy as Curt in the car with an open window and the wind in his face.

I never knew that losing a dog would hurt so much, but I've known and loved Curt a lot longer and a lot more than many of the people I've had in my life. He and I have walked many miles together and I still look outside waiting to see his pointy ears sticking up and him staring at me, wanting to come in. He had figured out that he might want to hang out with Rylan-the food dropper lately and they were becoming fast friends.

-The very last time he ran away, he took our other dog Lola with him. When I found them, they'd only made it half a mile. Curt, the 16 year old dog with congestive heart failure was looking happy and spry, and Lola, the much younger dog was dragging ass, her ears were touching the ground and she was foaming at the mouth. They both hopped back in the car with me and Lola hasn't left my side for an extended period of time since.

I know that dogs don't read blogs, especially ones that have passed. So what!:

Thank you Curt. Thank you for being a super awesome dog and loving us. Thank you for teaching me to become a "dog mom" and for being your happy, funloving self. Thank you for tolerating Lola's overzealous love for you. She misses you and so do we.