1999 - Oct 30, 2008

Andy-Dog  was euthanized today due to acute renal failure.  We found out he was sick last night when he was unable to walk to come in to eat.  In hind sight there were signs, but they were indistinguishable from Andy’s normal behavior.  He’s the dog I’ve called autistic.  Whether he interacted with people at any given time was open to guess work.  So when he didn’t come in to the house for days while John was gone and ate his meals in the yard (where Logan and I took them to him carefully), we didn’t think it all that different.  He returned to normal-for-Andy when John came back.  But then didn’t come in again for three meals in a row, which was a little strange.  John brought him in at next sighting, and he ate normally and behaved the same as usual, so we attributed the meal skipping to a carry over from having missed John.  Until yesterday evening when he was unable to stand.This morning John took him to the vet and left him for them to check out as they could work him in.  Blood work showed that his kidneys weren’t just in trouble, but shut down.Logan and I met John at the vets this evening to say goodbye.  Now Logan and John are out digging a grave.  Logan is taking a printed out photo of Andy to school to put on their Dia de los Muertos alter tomorrow.

Andy was the dog no one saw.  The low impact dog.  The special dog.  He was one of two dogs that John has liked.  He spent a while barking at the compost pile at one point.  We never did figure out why.  He preferred corners, which in a round house was difficult.  He moved as little as possible, but he worked well with routine once he learned it.  In the house to eat.  Out of the house for the rest of the time in the summer (by his own choice) and for what he needed to do in the winter.  When we first got him we found that although he was somewhat house broken he was also likely to hike his leg while looking out the window.  He didn’t quite make the connection between seeing outdoors and being outdoors.  Or he didn’t care.   Once in a while he wanted to be petted, but often he looked very nervous if people came near him.  He lived for food first and fore most.  He trusted John, and tolerated me and Logan, although he never growled at anyone but the cats.  He’d become the easy dog.  Feed him.  Pet him for a minute.  Let him out.  Repeat in twelve hours.   People who visited us didn’t even know he was here because he’d be hidden under the house and never emerge.

We’d only had Andy, as well as Cosmo, since April of 2005.  You can see the posts about them in the Archive from when we adopted them.  We don’t know what  Andy’s history was before the rescue group found him, but we doubt it was a good life.  The shelter that the rescue group found him in was handling him with a “control stick” (long pole with a loop at one end) because they thought he might be vicious.  The woman who rescued him said once she convinced them to get rid of the stick he came and sat on her foot.  Which for Andy must have been a huge leap of faith and desperation.  We got to be friends with him thanks to a bag of elk jerky.