Like I said, Barney was a crazy puppy, but he has always been so happy and so sweet! Barney has been with us from the beginning of our relationship, through our dating, getting engaged, getting married and having Emily. He grew be such a calm old man. He was very protective of Emily and he slept in her room every night, this gave Emily so much peace when she was afraid at night.
Here are some pictures of our sweet boy!
Puppy Barney:)
Such a handsome boy!!!!
Barney loved to do tricks for his food. He could catch about anything...even ice.
This picture was taken after Jeff and I had been married just over a year.
This was Emily's first Christmas, she was 4 months old.
I just LOVE this picture. Emily was about 14 months old in this picture.
This was Barney getting his stocking this past Christmas. We had no idea this would be his last Christmas.
We had a lot of snow this winter. Barney loved snow. I'm glad he got a lot of it for his last winter!
These pictures of Emily and Barney were taken about a month ago.
This picture was taken about a week before he died.
Barney was 11.5 years old. He had been sick for about 2 months. He didn't want to eat anymore. It started slowly. First he wouldn't eat stuff that was dropped on the floor anymore. Then he stopped wanting dry dog food, then he stopped eating canned food. I was cooking chicken most nights for him and that was even becoming a struggle. The vet did lots of tests, x-rays, and an ultrasound. The tests showed nothing. Barney's blood work and liver function tests were perfect. We thought maybe he had a tooth problem so we had his teeth cleaned, and we saw nothing. We put him on antibiotics, steroids and a few other meds. These things would help him to eat a little bit more but ultimately, he was still loosing weight. Although we never found it, the vet was pretty sure he had cancer somewhere. Barney went from around 56 lbs to 41 lbs. He was so skinny!!! We finally excepted the fact that Barney was sick and that he wasn't going to get better. We then had the task of assessing his quality of life and making sure that we didn't put him through any pain or suffering just to keep him with us longer. We finally made the decision to have him put to sleep. He was loosing about 2 lbs a week. It was obvious to us that he was sick and not himself in many ways, but he was still able to go for his daily walk which was his favorite thing of all. We wanted him to go while he was still Barney, before he got so bad that he couldn't do any the things he enjoyed.
We made the decision on Monday so we had the entire week to say good-bye. It was such a difficult week, but it gave us time to deal with it and to explain things to Emily.
Here are some pictures from Barney's last week with us. The weather was beautiful and he got a LONG walk each day. Here he outside with Emily and one of her friends on a beautiful spring day.
Barney's favorite food in the whole wide world was pizza. Even though he wasn't eating much, we still ordered pizza on his last night with us. He was able to eat a few bites. Pizza night won't be the same without him.
Emily snuggling with Barney on his last night.
Some friends were kind enough to take Emily with them to the zoo on Friday so we could take Barney to the vet. We made sure to get in one last family walk before they came to pick her up.
