Rusty-Dog 1993-2008

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I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friends' companion, Rusty. Rusty was such a good boy, and he died from complications during yesterday's surgery to remove a huge benign tumor from his hip area. They knew the surgery was a risk, but the tumor tripled in size in a short while, and it interfered with his gait in a horrible way. He already had arthritis in his knees, and they knew the inactivity it caused would have brought the same result after prolonged pain and suffering.

Rusty joined his family as a puppy, shortly after The Oracle and I adoped our neurotic "firstborn," Strudel.

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From the minute he came home, his parents could see that he was "too smart for his own good," possessing interesting skills like having enough sense to backtrack his path when he tangled his lead instead of just pulling willy-nilly. Rusty frequently found new ways to keep them on their toes. All puppies find ways to misbehave, but Rusty made misbehaving an art.

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Almost every day, Rusty's mom would come to work and tell me Rusty's antics from the day before, and my accursed memory is refusing to cooperate and bring them forth.

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Long before they had children, they needed baby locks on their cabinets to keep him out of the trash. He was a big-time chow-hound, and if he could eat it, he'd steal it. If it was inedible, he'd eat it anyway. He had a nasty habit of raiding the laundry hamper and leaving underwear laying around for company to see. In his younger days, he'd steal anything at hand so you'd chase him, or sometimes he'd just want something in his mouth. I remember many visits where Rusty would grab a sofa pillow and run around with it when I arrived.

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The worst thing he ate was a light bulb. In an effort to save his bowels from the shredding they rightfully deserved, the vet recommended they feed him every couple of hours to keep his bowels full of something besides glass. The shard-laden results picked off the lawn must've been awful to pass. Another lovely weekend, Rusty's dad dismantled their lawnmower to fix something or another, and Rusty ate the owner's manual before he had a chance to put it back together.

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There was a rainy occasion where Rusty was let out to do his business, and when mom went to the door to let him in, she couldn't see him. She called him and he popped his head up from a mud hole he'd either dug out or enlarged, wearing so much mud it was jammed into his ears.

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When their kids were born, Rusty tolerated the ear pullings and crash landings like a pro, with nary a grr or a nip. As they grew, he was their playmate, protector, and face washer.

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There were so many other Rusty stories, and my lousy memory just can't bring them forth at the moment. He was so well trained that, until they had kids, Rusty would lay in the family room while they had dinner in the kitchen. He would stop at the back door to have his feet wiped on rainy days.

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He was such a cool dog, and I'm so sorry and sad that he's gone.