Child of God: Luc....I miss you!

November 20th, we said goodbye to our best friend, our baby, such a great dog. He will never be forgotten.

A little over 15 years ago...my Daddy and I were sitting in our mobile home with the door open and all of a sudden....here come these two black and white balls of fur barrelling through the living room. Susie, my sister in law, slipped then in the door and oh my what a surprise! We fell in love immediately! They were beautiful, Old English Sheepdogs. They were so much fun. We named them Curley and Moe! That didn't last long though, We were teaching them NO and other commands and Moe thought we were saying NO when we were calling him and he just got confused so we named him Jean Luc after a Star Trek captain....geeks I know! They were so easy to house train so we kept them inside most of the time. One Sunday morning early we put them out in the pen while we got ready for Church. We went out to get them to bring them in and they both were acting funny. I noticed there was some meat in the pen....we never gave them scraps. They both were shivering and being lethargic and I gave them both gatorade thinking that might help. Nothing helped and Curley was not able to stand up. We jumped in our Suzuki Samari and headed to Hickory to the Emergency Vets office. Curley died in my arms on the way there. We took both of them in and I remember us crying on the floor over our 'babies'. They tested them for several poisons and nothing matched, and the tests were 80 dollars each so we told them to just treat Luc and save him. We were young and financially not able to pay a whole lot for all of this, so they started an IV and gave him all kinds of medications. They told us they had to keep him over night and then we had to come and transport him to our regular vet on Monday. I didn't want to leave, but we had to get Curley home to bury him. It was so sad, we burried him at the edge of my parents garden. The next morning we went to get Luc and take him to our vet, we paid almost $300 dollars to the ER Vet and got him to Morganton to Dr. Anton. They kept him all that week, we went every day to see him and they would call us at night to let us know how he was. Friday came and Dr. Anton said we could take him home on Saturday. I asked him if I could pay payments, knowing if one night was 300 dollars...a whole week would be WAY more! He said sure and Saturday morning I went to pick up Luc and the nurse came out to give him to me and she handed me the bill...38 dollars! I said this is a payment right? She said no that Dr. Anton is writing off everything else, all we had to pay for was the medications. I cried and cried...how sweet was that!

We got him home and he was soooo clingy and such a big ole baby. His little leg where the IV was trembled from that time on. We never found out who poisoned them, though we have an idea...but it was too horrible to really accept. Luc went to the grave and would lay sometimes...it was like he knew!

We kept him shaved in the summer and I thought I could do it one time....and I cut his little tongue....it never healed together so he always had this little slit in his tongue...I didn't really try to cut him again! We took him on trips, he was the closest thing to a child we have ever had. He moved with us to Myrtle Beach this last time and he did great, one day the exterminater came and sprayed....and within a few days he didn't have complete control over his bladder. Coincidence I don't know. We brought him home to my parents...and they babied him so much. Daddy kept him in the laundry room with a bright warm light for him to sleep under. When we moved home we brought him to live with us again, tried to keep him inside...but he really couldn't hold his bladder at all anymore. He was sitting on the floor and peed while he was sitting there.

Dr. Anton said he wasn't in a lot of pain and while he had lived a long time, if we kept giving him an Aspirin and watching him he should be ok for a while. That was a year ago and he had more and more trouble getting up and down so we knew that the time was coming. We got a puppy and on the 17th the puppy and Luc were playing...He was up playing and galloping with the puppy...barking and just full of life, I was so shocked....wished I had taken pictures. Scott had gotten him a new lead so he could get up on the porch since it was getting cold. Luc came up to the porch behind a bush.

I knew something was up on Monday the 19th. He barked all day and never got up from where he was laying that I know of. When Scott got home he tried to get him up but he had no control over his back legs. Daisy wouldn't even go down the steps hardly at all that day...like she was scared. Scott came in crying and told me what he saw and we both bawled knowing that we were going to have to take him the next day to put him to sleep. Scott took Daisy out later that night...almost midnight to pee...Luc barked and it scared Daisy so much that she peed right there on the porch. I woke up to take Daisy out the next morning...around 7 and when I walked out there I saw his little furry ears at the bottom of the steps peeking around the corner...but he didn't move when the puppy went down...and didn't move when I yelled for him. I walked over and looked off the porch and saw he wasn't breathing.....I cried and cried all day, Scott barely went to work...but he had to. I called my mom and dad and told them, mom cried with me...she loved him too. Brad came that afternoon to take him out to bury him near Curley.

He was such a good dog, he was protective, sweet, loving and he had a way of always making me smile. He had one blue eye and one black eye. He was there when we started our fertility treatments and when I would be so sad because of a negative pregnancy test...it was like he knew I was sad and he would climb up in bed or on the couch and lay with me....hugging me almost. I never knew I could love an animal like I loved him. I still cry thinking of him. We had a family portrait made with him...he was part of our family.