Silas

This is a picture of our dog, Silas, taken on his last day, a few hours before we took him to the vet to be euthanized yesterday.

Silas came to live with us on Easter Sunday in 1998. A professor of Jeff's from graduate school told him that an acquaintance of hers was trying to find a home for a dog that had been abandoned at a local dog park. This friend was often the first one to arrive at the park in the morning, and one day, there was Silas. Someone had slipped him into the park with a note around his collar saying that he had been found wandering around Town Lake, but that his rescuer's landlord wouldn't allow keeping him. We met Silas at the park a few times, and decided to try a sleepover Easter weekend. That sleepover lasted nearly 11 years.

He loved all people, especially kids, but other dogs not so much. He liked the idea of chasing cats outdoors, but was cowed by any that he met inside. He was never a cuddly animal. He liked to be nearby, especially during thunderstorms, but was content to sleep a few feet away. He snored and chased squirrels in his sleep. He adored Jeff's father. He had no interest in fetching anything tossed on dry land but was absolutely compelled to retrieve anything thrown into a body of water. He was quite skilled at catching food tossed to him. He loved going to the groomer's and the vet's office and seemed to be very popular at both places -- he could really turn on the charm when he wanted to. He loved to ride in the car and was known to jump into strange cars if the doors were left open. He had a very accurate stomach clock that announced mealtimes to the second -- but mercifully, it was flexible on weekend mornings. Whenever we came home, he was always waiting to greet us at the top of the stairs.

Last fall, after some unusual accidents in the house, we took him in for a checkup and some test results warranted further investigation. An ultrasound confirmed that he had a rather large and seemingly fast-growing tumor on one of his adrenal glands that was also impinging on his aorta and causing symptoms of Cushing's syndrome. Although usually treatable, the form that Silas had was not, and due to his age, Jeff and I decided take a course of making him comfortable and waiting. We knew that we would have to make a tough decision when the time came. This past Sunday evening he stopped eating and he became increasingly wobbly over the next several days. So we made an appointment with the vet for last night. It was very difficult, but very necessary.

He was a good dog. We are really going to miss him.