Farewell to a Man's Best Friend

Last Saturday, June 13, 2009 Ben's 8 1/2 year old PitBull, Turbo passed away. Ben got him as a puppy barely old enough to be away from his mother, he always told me he chose Turbo because he was the runt of the litter and he had so much spunk. He named him Turbo because he could outrun just about any dog and when he got going he would tear around faster than seemed possible. Pit Bulls are known to be active, happy dogs and they are great with other pets and kids. When Marx and Maddox first met Turbo they put him through every test a toddler can imagine and he never once snapped at them or showed his teeth, just layed down and took it. He was a lot of fun for them and a great companion for Ben. It was just the two of them for a long time and when we first met Turbo was not impressed with me at all. He did not like that I took his place by Ben on the couch and I took Ben away a lot. He eventually decided that if there was going to be a woman around it might as well be me and we got to be pretty good friends over the years. I did make Ben kick him off the bed, I will defend myself here and say that I didn't really want to kick Turbo off the bed, I wanted to kick my own dog, Shryn off the bed because she is huge and she spreads out and takes up the whole freaking thing, Turbo was actually really great to have in the bed, he would curl up at Ben's feet and stay there all night long, never moved. (Sorry, Turbo, if I could have kept her off and let just you on, I would have.) He did drive me crazy because he urinated on everything that did not smell like him and that is just disgusting, Ben had refused to get him neutered when he was a puppy and it's not such a great idea to neuter and older Pit Bull, but he was a good dog and right up to the very end he lived up to his name. 100 miles an hour at the push of a button! He was always faster than Shryn, even when she was a puppy and he was 3 years old. Turbo was one in a million too, slightly retarded we are convinced, he could only wag his tail one way which made him do this funny dance when he got excited that Ben dubbed "the super C", he would also hop around on just his two front legs when he got super excited, he always had to have a sock in his mouth when he met Ben at the back door. We had some battles over the stupid socks that Turbo carried around. I swear he ate half of them, and the other half he bit a hole in or ripped apart with Shryn. Socks were Turbos favorite thing, he prefered Bens and he prefered them dirty. I cannot tell you how many half pairs of socks Ben now has because of his dog! Turbo went on his last camping trip with Ben about 3 weeks ago. Ben and his friend Andy took Turbo and Shryn and both of Andy's dogs up above Payson and hiked through some switchback for a couple of days. Ben said that Turbo was just like he always was on a camping trip, romping through the stream with Shryn and walking ahead of Ben on the trail to scope things out, he loved being outdoors and could handle just about any kind of terrain, ben had nicknamed him the "Mountain Goat" because he would climb over anything without hesitation. After that trip Turbo began to deteriorate. At first we didn't really notice anything was wrong with him, then one day I saw him trying to urinate in the backyard and he was getting nothing out. The same thing had happened a few years ago and I took some extreme measures to fix the problem, that time it was a blockage in his urethra. This time I gave it a couple of days to see if anything changed, it did, it got worse. Only this time he had different symptoms, which I looked up, of course, everything I came across said that the problem was more than likely his prostate and for a dog his age (Pit Bulls life expectancy is between 8-12 years) and being unaltered (not nuetered) there was not much we could do without the aide of special testing at the vet and if it was cancer there was no point in treating it, he would die anyway. We do not have the extra money to spend on a vet visit so we made the decision that if he was really that sick and he was going to pass away we had to let him go. I know it killed Ben to decide that. Last Friday I spent most of the day with my Mom watching my brothers kids and Ben worked all day so we got home late that night. Turbo was outside in the backyard and Ben went to check on him, he was curled up in his hole under our bedroom window and Ben came in and asked if he could bring him in for the night so he at least would not be outside, he could tell he was not doing well. Ben brought him in and laid him on the futon on an old comforter, it didn't take long for Turbo to start moaning, it was the sadest sound. Turbo tried to get up at one point and Ben had to help him get off the futon, he stumbled across the room and barely made it to the kennel. We knew he was in bad shape at that point. He laid in the kennel and moaned most of the night, at 4 am Ben moved him to the shop so he would not wake up Deacon. When we got up in the morning at 8 I went to check on him, he was quiet so I put my hand on his side and I knew he was gone. Ben was behind me and I couldn't turn to look at him, I sat down on the floor by Turbo and he knew. I have rarely seen a man cry, the only time I can remember my Dad crying was when my cousin was killed, so I was not prepared for Ben's tears. It broke my heart to see him cry over his buddy, he was already late for work, but he sat there for a while with him. I had Tim take Turbo's body to the vet clinic up the street after he got up, funny enough, they don't just take the body and burry it, the options they give are cremation and they handle the ashes or cremation and YOU handle the ashes. I knew Ben was going to want the ashes back so we now have to find an urn for the ashes of a dog. Never thought I would have that in my house. (Anybody else reminded of Meet the Fockers?)