Goodbye, sweet boy.

We had to say good-bye to our Trevor last week. He had cancer behind his right eye. We’d taken him to the vet 4-5 times over the last 4 weeks trying to diagnose what was ailing him.

At first, we thought it was an ear infection. He’d had several of those over the years. He whimpered a bit a few times and the pain seemed to be near his ear. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with his ear. After x-rays, she thought he might be suffering from arthritis in his back. But we noticed a few days after the initial vet visit that his right eye appeared swollen and was bulging slightly. We took him back in but they couldn’t find any scratches or dust in his eye to cause his symptoms.

More days elapsed as we waited. Hoping for improvement. Hoping to see our Trevor happy and active again.

Instead, his eye began to bulge and our once very active dog became a couch potato. He had to be nudged to go potty a few times a day. He stopped being interested in food or water. He just wanted to lay on the warm couch. It was heartbreaking. Near the end, Tygh was feeding him baby food and getting water into his mouth through a syringe.

Trevor came into our lives almost 8 years ago. We had had Nina a year when Tygh saw Trev at a Pet Smart adoption event while he was there buying food for Nina. We weren’t in the market for another dog. There was something about Trev that spoke to Tygh.

He was just a puppy at the time, probably 7 or 8 months old, still unneutered, skinny as all get out and sick when we brought him home. He had giardia and spent an entire week vomiting until the giardia ran its course. The folks running the adoption event told Tygh Trev had come from Idaho. He’d been kept for some period of time at a place where all the dogs had to compete for food from one feeding station. That’s why he was so skinny.

I remember being fearful to take both dogs for a walk at the same time. It took some time to learn to juggle 2 leashes and young pups. But we did it. And for 7 years, we walked those dogs together twice a day.

Trev loved to run and play fetch with his blue ball. He was so fast. We spent countless hours throwing his ball in fields around Beaverton. He never wanted to stop. He could chase twice as many balls as Nina in the same amount of time. He didn’t just catch the ball and come back. He kept running with the ball in the opposite direction before turning and heading back with his prize.

Trev also had a well-developed prey instinct and over the years got into tangles with many squirrels and raccoons and even stared down a massive cow in Eastern Oregon in his younger years.

Trev was always good with people. He’d bark when anyone came to the door. But once it opened and he’d had a few seconds to sniff, the visitor was a new friend. When a family member he hadn’t seen in a while came for a visit, he would turn and twist his body into the most happy, wiggly way, trying to get as many kisses in as he could. He loved to put both paws on your shoulders and kiss your face.

He was a bit more friend-challenged when it came to other dogs. I always thought that was such a puzzle about Trevor. He lived with Nina. They coexisted happily. Yet, he was unpredictable with other dogs out in the world. We had to stop going to dog parks because it was always Trev who managed to get into some altercation. He accepted Jill and Chris’s dog, Phoebe. She was a friend to Trev. And he tolerated Ian and Katy’s dogs, Beans and Coco. But he was distrustful of most other dogs and over the years, we altered our walking route to avoid meeting strange dogs head on.

We took Trev and Nina on a lot of adventures over the years. Trips to Eastern Oregon, camping, hiking, the beach. He and Nina climbed South Sister with Tygh and Ian when they were still young.

Trev loved comfort. One of the more endearing things about him was how much he loved a pillow. He always liked to curl up on the sofa with his head on a pillow. At bedtime, he liked to burrow under the blankets and sleep warm. Sometimes he would wake me up, panting and too hot, ready to come up for air.

Tygh and I loved Trevor. We doted on him. Our kids had grown up. They became like our kids. Outings were planned many times around how long it would take. We didn’t want to leave them home alone for too long. Or if it was an evening out with friends we had to plan to feed the dogs before we left so they wouldn’t be hungry. We left lights on for them and made a big fuss whenever we came home.

Still, Trev was Tygh’s dog truly. I was still working full-time when Trev came into our lives. Tygh had started a business and was working from home. Tygh was Trev’s person. He followed Tygh around. He was his shadow. When Tygh would leave on a business trip a few times a year, Trev would spend much of his time in the chair by the front door, waiting for him to return.

Trev was prone to accidents and calamities. He was stung by a bee when he was pretty young. His face swelled up like a Sharpei. He came back from a hike with ticks all over his body. They had to be picked off by hand at the vet’s office. He had many sprained ankles and injuries over the years as well.

We bought this home for many reasons. One of them was to have a nice big yard for our two dogs to run around in and be safe. And here we are just a year later with our Trev gone. It’s quiet here and his presence is missed. Nina is getting a lot of extra pets and attention. I wonder what she thinks. She lived with Trev for 8 years. And suddenly he’s just not here. There is no way to explain it to her. Does she feel loss? Is she waiting for him to come in the door from a walk she wasn’t invited on? During the past month, he left often without her for vet visits. Each time, I think she was a bit resentful that he was going somewhere and she wasn’t.

We love you Trevor. We miss you. We packed a lot into the 8 years of your life. I wish it were longer.