Merry Christmas!

Rest Easy Sweet Jack Dog

This year Thanksgiving was bittersweet for us.

I was able to spend the whole week catching up on chores that needed to get done around the house. Sarah and I had a good time making some crafts. Evan crawled around everywhere so I could chase him.

Jack had been moving a little slow for the past few weeks. We thought it was just his age, he's 10 and from what I've been told that's old for a lab. The weekend before Thanksgiving he progressively became worse. His bed was the only place he wanted to be and when he had to get up he would whimper.

That Monday Aaron took him to the vet to get checked out. I had a really bad feeling about the whole thing. I laid on the floor next to him that morning and tried to talk to him. I would talk to him and he would move his eyes to meet mine. This was not my sweet Jack dog. The Jack I knew would have been up and wagging his tail like crazy. His tail was still that morning.

Aaron left to take him to the vet and the kids went with me to run errands.

I got a call a few hours later that brought tears and sadness. The vet had found a mass on Jack's spinal cord in his neck area. It was inoperable and although they could give him medicine to ease his pain, they couldn't fix him. The medicine was only a temporary fix for what we knew would eventually come and it would not have been fair to make him suffer.

My brave and strong husband stayed with Jack until he left this world and entered heaven. I can only imagine how fast Jack ran into the gates of heaven and how hard he wagged his tail when he saw Jesus. I could never have imagined missing an animal as much as I miss him. His dog bed has left our home but we can't bring ourselves to take away his dog bowls.

Sarah misses him so much and talks about him almost daily. She knows he's in heaven but asks when he can come home or when she can go to heave to see him.

Thank you Jack for being a loyal companion, guard dog and a member of our family.