Sweet Jaxon

We lost our sweet Jaxon early yesterday morning. :( *sigh*  He was the best pup anyone could ask for and had the sweetest, most laid back personality of any dog I've ever met. There will never be another like him. We already miss him dearly.

Jax had always had some breathing issues, but it seemed to have gotten worse over the last several months. He didn't seem like he was in pain or anything, but would cough a lot like he was trying to cough up a hairball. When we went for a walk on Saturday, Jax collapsed on the sidewalk just a few houses up from ours. I ran over to see if he was ok and when I picked him up, he was completely limp. I actually thought he was dead but he came to after 10 seconds or so and started coughing and sputtering. I am now wondering if he had a little heart attack or a stroke and just completely passed out from the stress of it. Lenny and I took him back to the house and just held him and let him rest. His breathing was really erratic - he was coughing a lot at first and it almost sounded like there was fluid in his lungs, then his breathing got supppper slow. We thought that was going to be the end, but then he started breathing more normally after a few minutes went by. We decided to let him rest for a bit by himself and went back outside to catch up with the rest of the fam.

When we got back to the house we weren't sure if he was going to be alive or not. However, he was up and walking around and seemed to be doing a little better. He was coughing and breathing really fast on and off all afternoon so we kind of suspected he might not be around too much longer and tried to prepare ourselves for the inevitable.

He ended up passing away sometime between 2am and 7am Sunday, 2/8/15 and unfortunately, Bella was the one who discovered him in the morning. She said she saw him laying down and he wasn't moving. She watched his nose for movement, looked at his ribs and didn't see anything, and then she picked his head up and it was all limp. She immediately came up and tearfully told Lenny he was gone. :(   Our poor sweet pup has gone to heaven.

While it's extremely hard to let him go, we are thankful it happened naturally and we didn't have to make that tough decision to put him down.There are a lot of silver linings if you think about it...it wasn't a long drawn out ordeal, he didn't seem to be in any pain, we had a little time to mentally prepare for the worst after we saw that he wasn't quite himself Saturday afternoon, etc. I'm also glad that Bella was here this weekend so we could all be together as a family to mourn the loss of our little buddy. She took it surprisingly well.

Jax is going to be greatly missed. He was such a wonderful and faithful companion and it's comforting to know we provided him with a good loving home while he was here. I never thought I would be so upset over the loss of a pet, but he was SO much more than "just a dog." He was part of our family and we loved him dearly. After going back and forth about it for a while, we decided to bury him out in the backyard under the cedar tree so he'll always be here with us where he belongs. Rest in peace, sweet Jaxon. We love you buddy! xoxo