Rusty Hughes 1995-2007

When I was twelve years old, I was recovering from a very serious surgery called a Spinal Fusion and had to be in a reclining wheelchair stuck at home for three months, which included my birthday.

And then...

My birthday rolls around and my parents had mysteriously left for the day and my grandparents were watching me when they came home that afternoon and put a small box on my lap and it was...moving.

So I opened it, and out popped a daschund puppy with a slightly bent ear because he was too big for his mother's belly who started to lick me to death and thus began a beautiful friendship.

In the last two years, his hearing and sight had started to go, and he had skin problems, and I had to give him cortizone to ease it or he would itch himself raw and cry the most awful sad dog sounds. He was a happy dog through it all, but he had noticeably slowed down in the last two months and was diagnosed with bad diabetes this week.

Now, there was a good chance he'd suffer seisures and eventually go into a coma and because of the insulin, he wouldn't be able to take the cortizone, so either way, he'd be in a world of pain. I put him to sleep out of mercy. He was my best friend and I held him in his favorite blanket with my scent all over it and he was already half asleep and relaxed when they injected him. He went painlessly.

I feel really really empty right now.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate this. As for him being medicine, so true. When I took my hiatus last year from writing for CHUD to be bedridden and recovering from a really nasty pressure sore, Rusty spent most of the day in bed with me, either sleeping, chewing on a bone, or licking me as if trying to heal me. I love my cat, and it'll kill me when she goes, but dogs are special, especially your first.

As for getting another dog, I considered another daschund, but I'd compare him too much to Rusty and thats just not fair to the the potential new dog, but Rusty really was special, he loved everybody he met, his tail wagged a mile a minute at the littlest thing, but its the little things I miss, like the circuit he made around the house when his vision started going, like it was a ritual for him to travel a fixed route of a place he knew so well, guided by his nose. When he was growing up, his all-time favorite toy was the toilet paper roll. He would grab the end hanging down and run as fast as he could down the hall and grin at us proudly at what he had done.

I think my other dog, a younger daschund is feeling depressed too. He keeps looking around Rusty's usual spots, as if trying to find him. Shelby really took to protecting Rusty in the last couple years.

I'm considering a mutt, I definately want some kind of hound again, as I think they have the best mix of brains, personality, and looks.

Christ, I didn't cry this much when my grandparents went(Mostly because they were very old, very sick, and I didn't make the decision to let them go). It's different when you took care of something and watch it grow, learning so much from it as it does from however you trained him.