Adele Ferguson

WELL, IT HAD to come; we had to have Jake put down.

I told you about Jake around National Dog Day. I got him June 29 when I was having lunch with friends and mentioned I was without a dog for the first time in years, having had a dog or dogs most of my life.

I had just had to have three dogs put down, Max, a Labrador who got a tumor that was pressing against his organs and causing him pain, Daisy, a Springer Spaniel with similar problems, and Eleanor, a little bitty dog with an advanced case of heart worms.

I promised my daughter no more dogs because she was the one who wound up having to take them to the vet, and wound up burying them in her little doggie graveyard next to my driveway.

ANYWAY, my friends had just that day agreed to take a dog belonging to a hospitalized friend of theirs to the humane society because he was being left alone in her house with a teenager hired to feed and water him and he barked a lot, annoying the neighbors. The owner was in tears, I was told, because she knew Jake would be put down because finding a home for him was probably impossible. He was a purebred Beagle she had had from puppyhood, but he was now 12 years old, stone deaf, going blind and he had seizures. He would stand very still, raise one paw up and hold it for seconds, put it down and raise the other paws one at a time.

I wound up with Jake, his bed, toys and a sack of dry dog food.

The first thing he did was pee on my rug which was to be expected.

I put him out in my fenced yard and he barked to get back in.

He was strictly an inside dog.

He coughed and snorted a lot so we took him to his previous vet in Silverdale who said he had tumors that were benign and had only a short time to live.

When he kept coughing, my daughter took him to the emergency vet clinic in Poulsbo where they said he did have a tumor and they took a biopsy which we agreed to have sent off for confirmation.

It was lymphatic cancer.

Karen took him next to her favorite vet in Kingston, Dr.

Moore, who agreed on the diagnosis and said he had a short time to live and don’t wait too long doing something about it.

Don’t let him get too sick.

He was taking prednisone to shrink the tumor but it didn’t do much good.

He led a good life. I walked him down to the road on a leash to get the newspapers each morning. He saw a deer. A rabbit sat in the driveway until he got close and then ran. A small black animal that looked like a mole but wasn’t a mole ran back and forth in front of him but it got away.

JAKE FOLLOWED me everywhere I went.

He escorted me into the bathroom and back out again.

When I worked in my office he slept under the table.

When I worked jigsaws in the guest room he was right there by the card table, one eye open to be sure I didn’t get away.

He ate well three times a day, Karen buying the best dog food (I paid of course) and he had a cute little red velvet coat he wore outside for his walk on cold days.

One day when it was time for his walk he declined, went into my bedroom and laid down.

I called Karen and we figured it was time.

She called for an appointment at Kingston, but it wouldn’t be until 5:15 p.m, so she took him to Poulsbo in case he was in pain.

There they gave him a bowl of food which he devoured, put him to sleep and then gave the shot.

Karen brought him home and buried him in her graveyard next to Max and Daisy.

Eleanor is buried elsewhere but memorialized by a plant.

I miss him. I just regret not having him longer. I miss his pretty little face.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)