Farewell My Friend

Confuscious  4/2000-1/2014

It's hard to believe.

Hard to say goodbye to

13 years, 9 months

8 moves in 4 different states

Countless road trips, vacations, camping trips, and backyard adventures

The brother to two Frenchie sisters, Mastiff mix foster, Boston rehab and foster, and almost one cat.

Sweet Confuscious has been with us almost as long as we have been married.  He has been with us through it all:

home remodeling

backyard remodeling

hellish jobs that brought us home in tears

the heat of Idaho

the cold of Wisconsin

the good times

the bad times

always with a "smile", lots of kisses, and plenty of snuggles

When he was a puppy, he used to snuggle across my neck and we would take a nap on the couch before work.  As he got bigger, he had to settle for snuggling in my lap.  I was his snuggle buddy and Skott was his playmate.

Fucie was always up for an adventure.  In fact, he would get SO excited on car rides that he would whine with excitement almost the ENTIRE time.  He LOVED the beach!  We will never forget the first time we let him off leash at the beach:

The only thing he loved more than the beach was sunbeams.

If there was any bit of light, he was in it:

As his health and mobility declined, this was his favorite spot.  He would go to the door and stand with his nose pressed into it until we noticed, opened the door for him, set up his blanket/pillow, and set him in the sunbeam.

When he lost control of his back end, Skott built him some wheels to allow him mobility.  No corner, door frame, door, or bare foot was safe from his wheels!  I think we will be finding blue paint scrapes until the end of time....

He eventually went completely deaf, almost blind, and unable to stand on his own.  His happy spirit persevered even then.  But when he no longer enjoyed time at the beach and spent most of his time sleeping, we knew his quality of life was slipping.

Eventually, his front legs gave out and we knew it was time to set our sweet boy free from the confines of his worn-out body

We will miss so many things about him.

I never want to forget all the funny, crazy things-

*his love of anything mint flavored

*his obsession with squashes and gourds

*his love of drinking water from the hose

*his countless toys (the elephant, the infamous monkey, the red devil, the giraffe, his minion, his sunbeam....) 

*the bets we had when giving him a new toy and what part we thought would be destroyed first

*his stupid ugly zebra dog bed that we got for $3 at dumb Walmart because we forgot his bed on a trip. He LOVED that thing and it lasted FOREVER.  I tried throwing it away several times and he would literally sit by the garbage and whine for it.

*his "scuttle butt" run

*snoring

*doing anything for cheese

*jumping in the bathtub for bath time (cuz he knew a treat would follow)

*playing "rah-cha-cha" with the towel after bath

*hide-and-seek when we came home from work

*his love of pillows and his uncanny ability to drool on the ones we actually slept on

*his love of being up high and watching everyone around him, yet he was terrified of heights and would freeze if taken across a footbridge 

*the way he always had to take a big mouth full of sand at the beach and then look up at you with a goofy grin as sand poured out of the corners of his mouth

*his love of people, especially little kids -as long as they didn't cry.  If kids cried, he would jump up and lick their mouths, as if trying to shut them up.  The harder he licked, the harder they cried...

*belly rubs

*his never-ending patience when rehabbing foster dogs

*and yes, even his obsessive licking.

I still find myself glancing over at the couch to check on him, find myself thinking about needing to go find him to see if he's stuck on something because I haven't seen him zoom by in awhile... missing him so much.  He was all love.