In Memoriam – “The Best Dog in the World”

Today I lost one of my best friends. Simon was put to rest this evening, peacefully, here at home. His spirit was willing, but his body could no longer keep up. This is the most painful decision I’ve ever had to make in my life. It was the right decision, just a cruelly hard one.


April 6, 2003

Simon was purchased from the Orange County Humane Society here in the city of Orange. This was back in 1992 when I was still married and living in Chino Hills, CA. We went to buy a dog because my wife really wanted one. I was ambivalent.

When you enter the dog shelter, there are rows of kennels, each housing a single dog. Most of the dogs there were fully grown. Some were very ill behaved and would be troublesome to adopt. While walking down the rows, viewing dog after dog, I saw Simon.


Phone cam pic from 2004.

He was young, estimated to be about a year old. He was sitting against the front gate of his kennel, looking up with his ears tucked back. He had a green collar on. None of the other dogs had collars. Ever since then, Simon has always owned a green collar.

His given name was “Yeller,” which I didn’t’ know until later. But he would always be Simon to me.

I had one of the attendants place Simon into the open dog run area so I could learn more about him. In what I would later learn was typical fashion, Simon ran about and sniffed everything. But he was also interactive with me. He was happy to see me, and glad I was there. I was sold. He was on death row. This was his last day to live.


May 12, 2006

On the way home, Simon sat in the passenger seat. He laid down and put his head on my lap and fell asleep. When we got home, I laid a towel out on the floor for him. He immediately knew it was for him, and he spread out on the towel. He was house broken already too.

He wasn’t broken of all his bad habits. I can’t count how many sprinkler heads he chewed up in the back yard. He also scratched and chewed through the side garage door. He had a hard time adjusting to being free outside and alone during the day.

He saved my life when I was going through my divorce. His happiness and excitement to see me each time I returned home made me feel loved still. He slept on the bed at night with me so I wouldn’t feel alone. He was a comfort to me. I made it clear that Simon was coming with me after the divorce. He gave me the strength to say “You will NOT get Simon in this divorce. I will fight you on every step if you try it.”


April 6, 2003

After leaving Chino Hills and moving to Orange, he adapted very well to his new surroundings. He had to live with a nightmare of a back yard (I was a terrible gardener). I called him “Simon of the Jungle.” He hated to feel the tall grass touching his belly when he tried to pee. It was quite funny to watch.

When I started to date again, one of the main criteria was that he needed to like Simon, and Simon needed to like him. I was thrilled when the feelings were mutual between Simon and James. They loved playing tug-of-war with Simon’s toys.


Phone cam pic from 2004.

In 1997, I needed to attend a work training class in Issaquah, Washington, just outside of Seattle. It was a three week class so I had friends and family “Simon-sit.” Some people would go over in the morning and let him outside and play with him. Then, someone else would go over in the evenings for the same. James would come over on Wednesday and the weekends and take care of him while I was away.

Simon handled the situation beautifully … until the last day of the trip that is. My friend Judy was there that morning checking up on Simon. Apparently that morning he got fed up with my absence and started scratching the front door and carpeting at the door. He basically stripped all the threads from the carpeting in a long narrow strip. I didn’t blame him. I was surprised he didn’t cause more damage. I just thought it was telling that he did that on the day I was returning. He knew I was coming.


September 2, 2001

We purchased our house in Orange in 2001. The day we got the keys, we grabbed two sleeping bags, a lamp, a clock and camped out on the living room floor. Simon was right next to us. He loved the new house, but especially loved his new back yard.

Around that time, Simon started having issues with his joints and hips. The vet took x-rays and we were surprised to hear that Simon had broken a leg sometime before I adopted him (the vet surmised that Simon had been hit by a car as a puppy). The fracture healed incorrectly, with some overlap, instead of end-to-end like they should. This caused one of his legs to be shorter than the other. That led to Simon blowing out the ligament in his knee, which had to replaced surgically.

Later, his hearing started to fade. We started to have to use hand gestures or loud claps to get his attention. In fact, for the past two or three years, he’s had virtually 90% hearing loss.


April 3, 2006

Over time, his whole hind quarters got weak and he started to rely on his front legs. When he would lay down on his bed, he would sit his butt down first, then use his front legs to climb down into a laying position.

When he would get back up, he would sit up, then use his front legs to lift up his hind quarters. Basically the two front legs were doing all the work. I knew this wasn’t good, since his front legs can’t take all the weight.

These last few months were the hardest on him. He became more and more unstable on his legs. Yesterday morning he fell several times and couldn’t get up. He even fell into the pool, which sent me running to get him out.


Phone cam pic from 2004.

In the past couple of months, his appetite diminished. The vet said he had lost 11 pounds – one fifth of his body weight – since a year earlier. He became lethargic. His breathing became labored and he panted all the time. His back and hips became arthritic. We got him steroids to help with his weakness, and pain pills to relieve his pain. They extended his stay with us and we’re glad we did it. But they are no longer helping him, and we could no longer avoid the inevitable.

We couldn’t bear the idea of taking Simon to be put to sleep at the vet’s office. Simon hated it there, and we didn’t want his last minutes of life to be spent there. Nor could we imagine driving Simon there and driving home without him. We did some research and found a mobile veterinary service that offers home euthanasia. They put pets to sleep at home and then take them to be cremated. It costs more to do it that way, but to us it was well worth it for Simon to be at home.


May 12, 2006

So today was the day I put one of my best friends to sleep. It was graceful. It was peaceful. It was humane. And he was at home with us where he belonged.