Chester

Sadly, after 8 years with us, we had to put Chester down on Tuesday.
He was a rescue dog who overcame heartworms (trip to the ICU from that surgery) and was gentle to every person and child he met.

Rusty and the kids went to Kelley's on Tuesday to bring him back home (he had been living with them the past 2 months) The kids had a lot of fun playing with Chester Tuesday afternoon. Chester was loving every minute of it in this picture. I took a lot of pictures of the kids with him. Rusty must have feed him half a pork loin . He had a good day for sure.

The kids seem to be taking it far better than Rusty and I. Reese even got out the shovel and helped rusty bury him in the back yard.

Nathan, Micah and Kelley did such a great job taking care of him these last two months. Micah was just disappointed that he didn't want to play with the dog toys they bought him ( which was a nice thing when we had baby toys because he never touched them). They took him for walks every day and showed him a lot of love.

2 weeks ago he was shaking and having issues breathing so I brought him up here to my vet. We were going to put him down but then he peped up when he was here and we thought we were past it all. He was at Kelleys for a week and was doing great when he had another spell. We had an ultrasound done and nothing was found (looking for tumors, heart issues etc). On paper he was the picture of health- just had all his shots, teeth cleaned, ultrasound and blood work. The dr thinks it must have arthritis of the spine. He was having these spells of tremendous pain where he had difficulty laying down, walking etc.