A Farewell to Shadow

Three years ago this November we brought home a large, loving, and slightly depressed 4 or 5 year old male Flat-coated Retriever named Scooby.

Soon after we got him.

He came to us through a rescue after his last owner died on him. Once he adjusted and learned to accept us as his family he became a high energy and loving dog. We decided to rename him Shadow because of the way he would shadow your every move through the house. It took Izzie until about Christmas to  decide that having him around wasn't the worst thing in the world.

The two shortly after we got them.

We had a good first Christmas and as we settled into the new year with two very wonderful and happy dogs.

Madsen Family Christmas 2011.

Getting ready for "snow", he wasn't a fan of hats.

Shadow loved to chew on toys (bones and balls, mostly). He was the master of meeting you at the door with a happy "hello" bark and a tail that moved at a million miles a minute. He had this "smile" where he would lightly pant with his tongue lolling out. After we had to have one of his canines removed the tongue would loll out and then fall to the side because the tooth wasn't there to hold it in the center.

Shadow's "smile".

When he wasn't playing with a toy or chasing the flashlight (which he loved) he enjoyed lounging around and mooching for food.

Although Shadow was, in general a huge fan of the holidays, you know with all the special foods and extra baking. But there was one holiday that Shadow was not such a huge fan of. This was in part due to the fact that the special food was predominately chocolate (not puppy friendly) and the innate desire to dress all family members up to celebrate (we never made him wear it long). Of course, the holiday was Halloween.

Crocodile Shadow, with bone (security item in this instance).

Over the course of the nearly three years that we had Shadow in our home he brought lots of love, comfort, friendship, and fun. This year started out with a mysterious excruciating leg pain that left him lame for about 1.5 weeks. The vet couldn't find a cause and simply sent us home with some pain killers. This was the first of several unexplained medical issues that Shadow had this past year. Some of the others included a loss of 15 pounds in weight for no apparent reason and an awful lot of digestive issues. All of these things led Tom and I to believe that Shadow was entering the last stage of his life.

Despite all of these things he remained an incredibly happy and active dog. On Thursday night Shadow went into respiratory distress. It was a long night and he didn't improve Friday. I took Shadow to the vet Friday afternoon and the x-rays showed multiple growths in his lungs (multiple lobes) and it was causing his lungs to collapse. His prognosis was not good because of the involvement with his lungs and the therapeutic attempts to re-inflate his lungs were only partially successful. It was clear that his time was very short. The therapeutic treatment worked just enough for me to bring him home to spend one last day with Tom.

Friday night several good friends came by to spend one last evening with him.

Crystal Chilson

Kip and Nicole Critchlow

Mijin Smith

While we had people over we had them take a final photo of us with him. Tom is holding his head up because he was tired.

Last photo of us with our boy.

We spent Saturday with him. We were instructed not to let him get too excited so that meant that we couldn't take him on a last hike, walk, catch, or play flashlight. So instead we had treats, cuddles, and chewing on his favorite toy.

Loved the bone up to the end.

We had a concierge vet come out to the house to euthanize him. We all, including Izzie, gathered in the living room and fed Shadow cantaloupe as the sedative took affect. He went peacefully with his head in Tom's lap.

It was a hard day but I know that we made the right choice. Although he was still happy and eating he could no longer breath well enough to play, hike, swim, or do those other things that he loved. In addition, even though he was a trooper to the end, he was in a great deal of pain. We have nearly three years of wonderful memories and we were so blessed to have him as a part of our family. We all loved him very much and he will be dearly missed.