Fifteen years ago, my wife took our puppy, Luna, to the local shelter to pick out a dog for the dog. After trying out all the other pups that she could see, Luna didn't get along with any of them. Deb was dejected and ready to leave but the shelter worker said there was one more dog left and led her to one of the kennels. Hiding behind his kennel-mate - who had just been adopted - was this little guy. Luna loved him and they played at the shelter for quite a while so we knew it was meant to be! Deb called me and asked me what I thought and I told her that I was fine with another dog. She said, "Don't you want to meet him first? What if you don't like him?" "He's a dog, right? I'll love him!". As it turns out, Apollo was already on extended time; the shelter was full and he had been there the longest. The next dog to come in would have meant that he was going to have to be put down. We found that out after we signed the paperwork to bring him home, but he always acted like he knew we saved him. Before the shelter, he had been beaten and otherwise mistreated until one day his worthless human being of an owner tied him up outside a park bathroom and left him. It was a couple days before someone noticed him and brought him to the pound and those couple days scarred him a bit. He had some bad separation anxiety and tore up multiple rooms' worth of carpet and destroyed furniture and woodwork in the house.
After putting him on a really low dose of an anti-anxiety med, though, he started to mellow out and would be okay hanging out with his buddy Luna when we'd leave the house. Eventually, we were even able to wean him off the drugs and he became the doggest dog to ever dog. Despite having an intense fear of strangers, he was never aggressive towards anyone and was always the sweetest animal. We'd chill on the sofa and watch TV together, he'd go swimming in the koi ponds (ugh!) and generally keep the backyard free of any other living creatures. When navigating the house, he always seemed so clumsy but once you got him outside his gracefulness would really shine. One summer day, he was sitting pretty in the backyard and suddenly jumped into the air from a sit to snatch a bird out of the air. He also enjoyed using snakes as fetch toys - he would pick them up, throw them, then chase after them - and there's a still-unconfirmed rumor that the three-legged box turtle in our garden might have had an encounter with Apollo.
Apollo absolutely loved our kids, too. We were concerned about the dogs when the babies started arriving, but Apollo took it as his sacred duty to protect and love the weird hairless puppies that we had brought home. When they were old enough to play in the backyard, Apollo would always go out with them and just sit there watching. He'd never bark or growl at anybody walking past, but he'd watch them intently and you just knew that all his fear of people would vanish and he'd fight to the death to protect his kids if anyone dared to come onto his side of the fence.
When we got him, we were told that he might live to be 8 or 10 years old and that he would eventually need surgery to correct his terribly displaced hips. While in the last year, his mobility was severely decreased due to some arthritis and nerve damage, he never did need the surgery and we estimate that he was about 9-12 months when we got him which means he was at least fifteen if not sixteen years old. Even as his health declined and he stopped being able to do steps, once he was up he still would bunny-hop whenever I came into the room and run over to greet me.
About 7 months ago, we noticed a growth on his side that we originally dismissed as a fatty tumor. Back in June, I took him in to see the doc and confirmed that it was a cancerous mass of some sort. He warned me that it was going to grow until it burst and once it burst there was nothing that we'd be able to do. At his age, surgery to remove the mass was just too risky and too expensive to consider. It didn't really change in size until about a week and a half ago when it suddenly became about the size of a softball. Last night, around 10pm it finally happened: The poor guy had fluid and blood all over his side as the tumor had burst in one spot leaving a gaping hole. We bandaged it up as best we could, put the cone of shame on him to keep him out of it, and loved on him overnight.
We took him in this morning and the doctor confirmed what we knew: there really wasn't anything that could be done for him. The tumor had managed to burst in a few other places overnight and while he was mobile and alert and not showing any signs of being in pain, she said that by Sunday night it would be infected and by Monday afternoon he'd probably be septic. So at about 10am today, surrounded by his family, the goodest bestest boy finally came off-duty and went to sleep. So hug your furries extra hard today and let them know that Apollo will be watching out for them.
