I made the decision last night to have my dog, Kate, euthanized today. Her appointment is at 4:40, and I'm going by myself. Deb offered to go in late to work and go with me. Even my boss, Kris, offered to go with me. How sweet is that? But I'll feel freer to mourn if there's no one around. I'm weird that way. Comforting just makes me feel uncomfortable most of the time. So don't feel like you need to put condolences in the GB or anything.

Katie is 15 or so now, and up until last year, she'd always been a big puppy. Her problems started with arthritis, then some intestinal bleeding, and she's been declining in health and energy ever since. She hasn't been able to eat anything since Wednesday, and very little for the two weeks before that. Last night she drank some water and then threw it up with blood clots in it. I don't want to let her get to the point where her organs start shutting down.

She's weak and she doesn't smile anymore.

Katie is one of those dogs that smiles. The corners of her mouth actually turn up, and the skin lining her mouth is black, so you can see the effect really well. Naturally, everyone loves her on first sight.

Whenever someone asks me what kind of dog she is, I reply, "Orange."

She's an orange and white mutt; she's always weighed 44 pounds since I got her 14 years ago; her ears are shaped like a German Shepard's�big radar dishes�except with short, horse-muzzle-soft fur; she has a nice, long snout; and she looks like she's got black eyeliner on. She's medium haired, and her favorite thing to do was to run and run and run, and spin around and around and around. She was still trying to do spins as recently as a few weeks ago, but she'd fall down.

My first wife, Deborah the First, and I got Katie after our sheltie, Nick, had been hit by a car and killed. Deborah picked her out at the pound because Kate was the dog who wouldn't stop barking until she got some attention. At that point in our lives, we lived in a trailer park in Alabama. Kate would sometimes wake up from a dead sleep and do what we not-so-affectionately called her "banshee bark," a long, high-pitched stream of frantic bark-yowling, scaring the piss out of us. She hasn't done that for years now.

When Deborah and I split up, I got Katie and she got the cat, Teacake.

Katie has always been a "special" child. She really never took to any kind of training attempts because we think her previous owners beat her, and she always overreacted to any sort of discipline. She would sit when told to lie down, and lie down when told to sit. I eventually gave up altogether, except for teaching her a hand command (snapping and pointing downward) to sit. She was pretty good at that.

But she was exceptionally good at forgetting her name and completely ignoring me when I called her, especially if she was wandering toward the street or doing some other stupidass thing that put my heart in my throat. I say "was" because she's pretty much completely lost her hearing at this point, and now I resort to waving my arms at her when I want her attention and then doing the "come here" arm sweep when I want her to come.

I've never had to euthanize a pet before. Never had one last so long. But Katie is just stubborn enough to hang on until parts start falling off. I joke to cope sometimes.

So today I have to say goodbye to my sweet dog. She's been with me through five addresses and three girlfriends, outlived another sheltie and two cats, and never got hit by a car despite some really good tries on her part. I'm really going to miss her.

This is all for now.

Moving on - 12:11 p.m. , 2007-08-14

Where the hell have I been? - 12:10 p.m. , 2007-02-19

Holy shit! - 2:24 p.m. , 2006-01-11

Stuffing recipe - 6:17 p.m. , 2005-12-13

Good Life Update - 10:22 a.m. , 2005-11-11