Festus

Once upon a time there was a puppy named Fetus, I mean Festus.  Only we didn't know him until he was 3 years old, that is when we adopted him as Jeremy's birthday present.  The poor dog had had his name misspelled as above, we had to take him home.  Once we did, we were so glad we did.

Festus never barked, loved cuddling, didn't shed, played catch by himself (he would toss the ball up in the air and then go chase it) and loved everyone.  Except birds, he just caught the ones that dared fly into our backyard in Utah and ate them.  For real.

He even let us do things like this to him.

He loved just hanging out with us, even if it was in a boat.

These were some of his best friends, my brothers dog Cyrus (wonderful dog) and our other dog Dottie (maybe not so wonderful, but very loving and cute). 

Most days after work before we had kids, this is what an afternoon looked like.

Then came Bug and Festus wanted to cuddle with him too.  These guys became buds.

They gave each other constant kisses.

Will even tried to give Festus his most beloved possessions, like his blue dog,

and his superman/batman cape.

He liked Cora too, but mostly because she fed him way more food than I will probably ever know about.

He was a good sport about playing with the kids.

About a month ago, our vet let us know that Festus had congestive heart failure in addition to his painful arthritis in his back legs.  I'd hoped that we'd still have another year with him, but this year was so cold and very hard on our poor pup pup.  It became apparent a couple weeks ago that his time to say goodbye had come.  His last few days he almost knew, he would climb into my lap, something he hasn't done in a couple years because of his arthritis.  He wouldn't leave our sides.  So we gave him lots of his favorite things, popcorn, chocolate and cuddles.  We decided to have a goodbye party for him and made him a peanut butter topped cupcake decorated with a dog biscuit.  He loved it.

On Saturday, March 8th, we took him to the vet to be put down.  Will came with us and just hugged him and sobbed the whole way there.  Our hearts were heavy, but he was able to leave this life peacefully and with lots of love.   We love you and will miss you pup pup.