I talked to my mom last night and found out that my favorite dog had to be put to sleep yesterday. He was 13 years old, so he had had a long life. But the vet said he had pancreatitis and that he was also having kidney failure.
Fatdog, or Calvin as the infidels called him, was an awesome dog. He was named Calvin when we got him but I soon figured out that the name fatdog fit him better. It didn’t really matter because he answered to both. But one day he secretly told me that he preferred fatdog. And yes, I know he doesn’t look fat, and he never was. He always had way too much energy to gain any excess fat. Between chasing the sprinkler and attacking the water, trying to catch the little red dot of a laser pointer, and herding basketballs around in the yard, he managed to stay pretty fit. No he never was fat, but that was never the point. If you ask me why I called him fatdog, I couldn’t tell you. I was calling everything fat back then. Regardless, that’s who he was to me.
Fatdog was really smart. He only took 5-10 minutes to learn new tricks as long as you kept the pieces of cheese coming. He also loved playing tug. So much so that nobody’s arm could ever hold out as long as he could. And whenever you finally did give in from exhaustion, he would just bring you the toy and place it in your hand… and wait. The second you even twitched a finger that signaled the beginning of play again and he instantly started tugging and growling. He was an awesome dog and I’m going to miss him.
These pictures are from about a decade ago but fatdog didn’t really look much different. The quality of the images isn’t that great because I don’t have a scanner so I had to take a picture of a picture. Regardless they are really good pictures of fatdog.

4 Responses to “Poor fatdog”

1. mom, on August 6th, 2004 at 22:06:21, said:
   

   Yes, those are great pictures of Calvin. He was truly a wonderful dog. It is funny how each one of us thought he was “our” dog. I have never had a better or smarter dog. When I laid him to rest I put all of his favorite toys with him. I hope heaven is ready to play, play, play!!!

2. chris, on August 7th, 2004 at 22:36:50, said:
   

   I am glad I finally got to meet fatdog aka Calvin. He was a real dog genius.

3. susan, on August 11th, 2004 at 11:56:16, said:
   

   I always heard the best stories about fatdog and I always wished I could meet him. It’s nice to see his picture, though–in addition to all his other nice qualities, he was apparently a super cutie.

4. breen, on August 12th, 2004 at 17:48:46, said:
   

   Yep he was a cutie :)

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