On Losing My Good Boy…

It pains me to come back after a long hiatus from blogging with this, but it’s a personally sad day around these parts.

Today, after a long year of watching his health decline, we had to put Mr. Chompers down. My family had a few dogs growing up. Mr. Chompers was *my* first dog. And how I loved him.

Mr. Chompers’ First Day Home

I remember when he was six weeks old, and we visited the breeder in central Indiana where I held him upside down in the palm of my hand and he was completely at ease with me. I put him down and he crawled onto my foot and fell asleep there. When it was time to go, his tiny self yipped at me — yelling at me to not leave him.

We came back a few weeks later when he weened and I held him in the palm of my hand the way home.

He’s the reason I build a content management system to blog before blogging was a thing I knew about, back in 2002. I blogged because I wanted to share the adventures we had together. When I was up late nights, programming in ActionScript in our loft in downtown Chicago, he stayed up with me. We’d go on late night walks together. When I was laid off in the summer of 2003, we hung out a lot. When I moved to Johnstown, he came with me. Chompers has been a loyal and steadfast friend and companion. There’s a hole in my heart that is going to take a long time to fill. He was my Boy.

He’s moved with us from Chicago to Johnstown, PA… back to Chicago in three more places we called home. He’s been through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland. My little white boxer with the brown ear and spot…

Logan And Mr. Chompers

He was well-loved. Well cared for. So many things we did to keep him as part of our lives. We knew, going in, that Boxers lead too short, but very happy lives, and that when things would decline they would really decline. I didn’t know what that meant. We’ve seen it for the last year as the nerves in his lower back gave way and he lost control of his hind legs.

It broke my heart as his nerves gave out. Still cheerful. Still so loving and quiet and loyal… but in quiet pain.