It was one year ago today that the gentle giant of a dog, known as Tahoe, was eased from her suffering in this world. Tahoe was the sweetest, most loving 100 lb mutt I have ever known, and even today we call the other dogs by her name - wishful thinking?
We adopted Tahoe from the Buffalo city pound just days after our wedding. She was a mutt - mixed Rott and Mastiff we were told (we would see the lab part later) - and just 10 lbs. She was born in the pound and some of her siblings were still there. We chose her because of all of the pups she was the only one who didn't come to the front of the pen to play with the humans - she wanted to bite and play on the other pups. We thought that would be good for our already one year old beagle, Hudson ... but this was before we knew how intolerant of other dogs he is.
Within days, Tahoe was sick with the parvo virus and we almost lost her then. She was down to 6 lbs, and we had to stay with her all night and hand feed her. She made it, and within a year was almost up to 100 lbs. When we saw the size of her paws, and since we knew we wanted the dogs to sleep in the bed with us, we even went and changed from a queen bed to a king!
Tahoe's life was full of love and play, dreams and belly rubs. She had the sweetest temperment I have ever known - this dog would turn over for a chihuahua (probably thanks to the bullying from Hudson), but by sheer size was a great guard dog.
When she was four she had her first seizures (scared the HECK out of me), and was placed on epilepsy drugs. And at the ripe young age of 9 she was diagnosed with cancer in March of 2010.
It was too soon ... too soon to lose Tahoe ... too soon after losing my mother to hear the word 'cancer' again, and too soon for us all to go through it all again (we had no idea what was on the horizon).
Tahoe was our love, and we wish she were with us, but her suffering is gone.
We love and miss you, gentle giant.
-Mom and Dad
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