Losing my boy

What can you say about the best dog that you've ever owned...and probably the best one you ever will own?  Kal-El was my heart dog, the first I've had.  The moment I saw him at the airport, I knew he was put on this earth to be my dog.  He's the dog I never should have had.  I wasn't supposed to get him, but the litter I had planned on was a false pregnancy.  So, Ronda found me Kal.  It was meant to be.  Kal was a dog that would do anything that I asked of him...and I "trained" him to do several things by only asking him.  Some of his jobs were to find the cats and pick up the food bowls.  I never taught him this...I really don't know how he knew to do it.

He was the first white shepherd to do lots of things in our area.  He introduced a lot of people to the fact that german shepherds DO come in white.  I constantly have people come up to me at trials and talk to me about him...people who I don't know at all.  He was that kind of dog, the kind you remembered.  He was the first white shepherd to get a UACHX and a UGRACH, and was one leg away from being the first to get a C-ATCH.  In my heart, he got that C-ATCH.  The titles and accolades are all great, but it was the experiences he gave to me that will live on with me.

I could tell stories about Kal for hours...and still never scratch the surface about what made him, him.  He was good with all people, but if you were one of his special friends, watch out!  There was risk he'd almost knock you to the ground in his exuberance to get to you to say hi.  He was good with dogs too, he liked to play with dogs of all sizes, but if a dog snarked at him, he got his feelings hurt.  Only on a very rare occasion would he snark back, and that was only if he thought one of his sisters was being threatened.  I often jokingly called him my "perfect dog"...but really, it wasn't much of a joke.  He was almost perfect.

Kal loved to "work", no matter what I asked him to do, he tried his best.  He was a great agility dog, not the fastest one out there, but he was steady.  He saved many of our runs by making up for my poor handling.  He was a great JWW dog, which given his size, still surprises me.  He LOVED flyball, and I'll never forget people asking me if he was a wolf at our first tournament.  And the surprise of some people that we were running an intact male shepherd.  He loved to go get his ball...but then realized how far he was from me and would come running back even faster.  He really liked Rally too, more than I did actually.  It was to be our retirement sport....  Regular obedience wasn't his favorite, he hated the stays..that was too far for him to be away from me.  And an out of site stay, you're crazy if you think he'd stand for that!  Conformation was only "okay" also...while he may not have been the "best" conformation dog, his outstanding temperament won over several judges.   He did have fun the couple of times he got to play with goats and sheep.

His decline was swift and painless for him.  Less than 24 hours before his death, he was playing fetch with me in the backyard.  It is a blessing for him, I would have hated to see him suffer or linger on with a disease.  But, man, it is so hard for me.  I still hear him moving about the house, and I keep checking his sleeping spots for him.  I'm grateful that he waited until Thursday so I could be with him.  If I had been working Thursday night, I would have most likely come home to find him already gone.  I truly believe he waited so I could give him permission to go...and at the end, he still didn't want to.  It was probably the one time where he was deliberately trying to go against my wishes.   He was that type of dog...my right hand man and my son.

I hope that some day, hemangiosarcoma becomes a disease that we can say our dogs USED to die of.  I somehow knew that that is probably what would take Kal, I just didn't know that it would be this soon.  The suddenness of it all is shocking....it feels like I've been punched in the gut and I cry a lot.  The girls are handling it well, they somehow know that he is gone.  They're not looking for him or crying for him (like they did when I took him to get neutered).  They're more concerned about me, especially Lonya.  She doesn't understand why I'm crying all the time and it's upsetting her.  I'm not sure if she thinks she's the cause or not...but I'm trying to give her extra attention.  And Sparrow, bless her, is being a great big sister, playing with Lonya and distracting all of us.

If people want to share a memory of Kal, I'd be glad for you to do so here.  I really have appreciated all of the notes and messages from everyone...it helps more than you know!