Yesterday I had to have Callie euthanized. Her health in general had been going down since about a year ago and her legs started giving her trouble early 2017, honestly she had begun a slight on again off agin limp as early as late 2015/early 2016 but over the past 6-8 months is was increasingly difficult for her to get up. Recently it was a real struggle and she would'nt stand to long. Her back legs were the problem....I knew her time was limited but yesterday came as a surprise . I let her out and fed her and then I noticed she had swelling on her mouth right side. My previous dog had an infected tooth so i knew that's what it was . I came to the realization that this was it (she had horrible teeth her last years). It seems odd a tooth would due her in but at her age and her health it was time.. She was losing control of her poops (luckily she always had firsm stools) so over the last few weeks I don't know how many times she would poop in her bed because she couldn't get up in time.
I've loved all my dogs and for that matter any dog I see but Callie was that once in a lifetime dog, she was my soulmate, not taking anything away from Sonny but Callie was that special one. There were so many memories and adventures which I will never top....
Callies favorite thing in the world was just being wherever I was, she would follow me everywhere from room to room but beyond that it was walks and hiking. There was also food...she loved her food!
We hiked all over southern AZ, Camped all over AZ from North rim of the Grand Canyon all the way down to 10 miles north of the mexico border. we camped in New Mexico numerous times (from Taos in the North all the way down to Silver City in the south). We even camped in Colorado.
Callie traveld more than most dogs...she had been to California, Nevada, Utah, N.M. Colorado.
Some highlights over the years was the time my brother and I with her got snowed in and stranded in Central AZ mountains for three days. Callie and I stayed in a cramped Nissan short-bed pickup with a camper shell due to the fact my tent collapsed.
There was the time we almost rolled the truck into a ditch while out searching for an old mining camp, We spent a cold windy high desert nght with no food and minimal provisions. Until we got pulled out the next morning.
The trip where me and Callie went to Death Valley during Christmas week of 2013. We went way back up a 4wd canyon to the old Manson family hideout ranch (Where they captured Charlie and the girls), then into Nevada, route 66....
The trip my brother and I had to roadbuild for three hours to get my Nissan back out of a camping spot we went to (way up a secluded canyon)
Colorado 2014 driving over a couple of the 14,000 ft passes and just before the end I got stuck in a hole and had to get winched out by a passing Jeep...
just so many great memories...
She was also always my "rock" always there for me (in fact i t was totally her to "come down" with her infected mouth on a Sundfay morning so as not to inconveinece me, so I had time to deal with it...totally Callie)......
She was there when my childhood closest friend got sick with cancer. I had aunts and uncles and grandparents die starting when I was four but this was the start of the people real close to me. Callie was my rock!
A couple years after that was when my mom spent about 5 weeks in the hospital and finally died...Callie never complained being left alone for hours and hours, always there at the door greeting me with a smile, a lick(sometimes doing her pogo sitck up and down dance).
When my brother had his problems early 2017 and took his life in February 2017, once again Callie got me through it...
An now Sonny was there for me when Callie had to go and he totally helped ease any pain. When i got home he literally leaped on me and hugged me smothering me with licks.
anyway I could go on and on but i wont...
Here are some pictures from over the years. I'm sharing all this because going back to the HCGJ days I always posted about Callie and usuallu with photos...
R.I.P Callie you will be missed :smile :
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Callie's first ever outdoors adventure 2008
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july 12th 2018 , by this point she rarely ventured beyond the back porch concrete but on this day she went out with Sonny to eat mesquite beans
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This is the last photo I took of Callie yesterday morning
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a couple vids
