RIP Kodiak Bear

Our most loyal and loving Chocolate Labrador Kodi was put to sleep on Saturday. It was beyond horrible for me and even worse for Dan. I met Kodi 6 years ago, when he was 5, when I met Dan. Dan got him as a puppy 11 years ago.

Recently his health has been deteriorating. He itched himself about 20 hours a day from some bizarre skin condition. His skin was raw from it. He bled from it. He had a ton of hair loss from it. He was also nearly deaf. He spent most of his time in the basement, just laying around and itching...no quality of life. I told Dan either we need to figure out if we can help him or we need to put him out of his misery. He had a slew of other problems in addition to this and I just knew it was the end of the road for him.

I made the appointment on Thursday to take him in on Saturday. We started to mourn then. We started to come up with absurd reasons to keep him alive for another week or month. We were being selfish, wanting him around for us, because we loved him...not much thinking about how much pain he was in.

So Dan and I dropped the baby off at my parents and made the drive to the vet. We pet Kodi and told him we loved him and told him how sorry we were. We got out of the car and let him walk around in the grass one last time. Dan told him his favorite story- the story of how he picked him from all of the other puppies.

We walked him inside the vet's office and then inside the room where he would never walk out of. It was heartbreaking. The vet came in and Dan asked her if we were doing the right thing and if there was anything else we could do to help him. She told us that this was the only humane option for Kodi. We knew, then, that we had to go through with it. We had to give him a dignified end and some kind of peace.

So they gave him the shot that would calm him. He got a little wobbly and so we helped him over to the bed they brought in for him. We hugged him and told him, again, how much we loved him. He started to drift off into a sleepy state and just kind of laid there. The vet came back in to administer the euthenasia. We decided not to stay for that. He was already out of it and to be honest I don't think either of us could take anymore.

So, we each gave him one last pet and one last 'I love you' and walked out. It was just simply terrible. He was the most wonderful lab ever. Always accomodating to us. Always loving. Always a good boy. We will miss him so much.

Kodiak Bear
1998-2009