Smokey Bear

Our Dog Smokey, a Chow Chow we adopted in October 1993 and sent to Doggy Heaven on 6/14/2005

We adopted Smokey in October of 1993 when he was 6 weeks old from a lady Heather worked with.  And yes for those doing the math Heather and I had only been married a few months when Smokey came along.  His mom and dad were 2 full blood chows, a rough hair (long) and a smooth hair (short).  This resulted in him having the standard mane and puffy tail but not the real puffy fur along his body.  Click this link for more information on the Chow Chow Breed
Smokey came complete with fleas and a weird diet.  They were feeding him high end dog food (like Science Diet), sprinkled with brewers yeast and garlic. The garlic was supposed to help the fleas, Our vet confirmed that garlic should help with the fleas but obviously it didn't.  We ended up having the house and yard sprayed then gave him several baths to get rid of the fleas.  He never did like baths after this, possibly he was scarred by this first experience.  One of us slept on the floor in the kitchen with him for several nights after we first got him to help him get over the separation from his old pack.

Here are some puppy pictures of Smokey (6-11 weeks old)

In February of 94 Smokey had a severe reaction to his vaccinations shot and we almost lost him.  This was the beginning of his liver problems that would plague him till his death.  Subsequent vaccinations never bothered him.

Even from day one he was our Great White Hunter.  Any animals that strayed into the back yard were subject to being chased and in many cases caught and chewed on till mom or dad  distracted Smokey long enough to deal with the remains.  The Stratford house had many pecan trees which meant many squirrels.  Once the squirrels discovered they could tease Smokey into barking they made a regular habit of aggravating him. 

Smokey kept me very busy fixing fence pickets at the Stratford house.  When he saw a squirrel or other critter on the fence or in a tree he would race across the yard, leaping just before reaching the fence and squarely plant his two front paws on the fence just below the middle cross member.  Over time this would loosen the pickets and we would often find pickets out and on several occasions we found Smokey in the neighbor's yard when he had kicked out adjacent pickets.

Smokey loved to sing along with fire trucks and police sirens.  The house on Stratford was close to a very busy fire station in Hurst so we had plenty of opportunities to hear him howling with the sirens.  When we moved to the new house Smokey decided that the train whistles were fun to sing with also.  When visiting with one of our neighbors several months after we moved n he told us that Smokey had taught his dogs to sing with the trains as they never minded the train whistles till we moved in.
Smokey Singing (2 1/2 years old)

In January of 1995 we found him wedged by his neck in the Y of two tree trunks one afternoon.  Heather had just gotten home from work and I had looked out the kitchen window to see him barking at a squirrel.  Heather came in and we turned to look to see why he wasn't jumping at the kitchen window to see who had driven up and found him on his side unconscious stuck in the Y of two tree trunks.  Fortunately he hadn't been there more than a minute or two but he had thrashed himself to total exhaustion trying to free himself.  After we got him back from the Vet and we got over the shock I promptly cut one of the branches off of the tree to prevent him from doing this again.  Since he had hurt his neck Heather fed him some ice cream to ease the pain.  As you can see in the picture below he is forcing himself to eat the ice cream.
Hating IceCream     If I must,

Dad and Glenda kept Smokey one time when we went on Vacation (To Washington/Vancouver?).  For some reason he didn't get along as well with their dog Gus (a male golden retriever) as he did the last time they watched him.  The two basically fought the entire time.  Smokey just could not be top dog.  They ended up boarding him with Glenda's Vet till we got back.

Fireworks and lightning scared the bejeebers out of Smokey.  The Stratford house was in between 2 very big annual fireworks shows (Bedford Boys ranch and Tarrant County College) which didn't help matters.  After 8 or so years of living outside through all kinds of weather and events (like when one of our trees blew over into the power line and caught on fire on 5/21/2001) he also became terrified of lightning and thunderstorms.  We aren't sure which was the initial trigger, the flash of lightning or the flash from the fireworks, either way he came unglued with loud noises or flashes of light.  At the Stratford house he would jump up to either the window in the kitchen or one of living room windows to let us know about the storms or fireworks.  When we got to the new house he chewed on the trim around the door trying to get in from the noise.
Lemme in it's scary out here!!

One afternoon I saw Smokey stumbling around in the yard and went out to investigate.  When I got to him he was having a small seizure but soon recovered and looked at me with his standard, "you want something?" look.  The vet determined that the seizure was probably caused by allergies and gave him a shot.  He was fine after this but would periodically get staph infections (on his neck and his leg) caused by allergies.

In September 2000 the electric meter reader left the gate open at the old house one morning and Smokey got out.  We spent several hours of pure panic looking for him, I think he was just as relieved as we were when we found him exploring a power line right of way east Cavender.  We figure he was out from about 10am till ~6pm when we found him.  When I got home one day the next month Smokey seemed more agitated than normal so I went out to investigate.  I found that the gate was open again.  Seems his little excursion the prior month had scared him enough to not like the open gate.  Needless to say I called the electric company again and had a very heated discussion with them regarding closing gates.  After this incident I put padlocks locks on both gates.

In October of 2002 an opossum nested and had babies under the deck of our neighbor to the East.  Several small opossums made their final venture under our fence.  Eventually mama opossum came over to investigate and Smokey ended up killing her before we could get him to stop.
Note for the squeamish, very large ziplock bags make excellent gloves for dealing with critter remains.  Turn the bag inside out then place over your hand like a glove.  Then pick up the remains and while keeping a grip on the remains turn the back rightside out and ziplock shut.  No muss no fuss and the remains are sealed up and ready for the next trash day.

Smokey was prone to ear infections before becoming an indoor dog.  Every spring he would start scratching at his ears till he whined and that was our signal to start putting the creme the doctor gave us in his ears.  This was always a challenge as he was constantly turning his head to see what we were doing and never liked us poking in his ears.  We took Smokey to PetsMart to get his toe nails clipped and the tech asked us if we wanted her to clean his ears, we said sure, if he'll let you mess with his feet you can try his ears.  She put him on the table and he didn't even blink or flinch while she clipped his toe nails (we barely got one foot done before giving up trying to clip them ourselves).  Now for the moment of truth, the ears, she soaked a cotton swab in an alcohol solution and dug in, not only did he not mind the probing he leaned into it making her job easier.  We should have known Smokey would let her work on him as he was always great with the vet and would pretty much let the vet do anything to him.

I brought Smokey in one morning at the new house due to thunder storms and brought him upstairs with me to keep his barking from waking the rest of the house up.  Came time for natures call and we headed down the stairs.  He jerked the leash out of my hand and started racing down the stairs.  About half way down he lost his balance and slid the rest of the way down till he hit bottom (blog entry).  A few weeks later Heather conned Smokey into coming upstairs to see what I was doing and when it came time to go back downstairs he just froze at the top of the stairs.  I had to scoot down the stairs one step at a time tightly holding him the entire time (carrying 50 squirming pounds of doggy down the stairs was not an option).  From that day forward he wouldn't even think of going upstairs. 

After being a totally outdoor doggy for 9 1/2 years he became a totally indoor doggy in July of 2004. We had boarded him and let him sleep inside several nights to ease the stress of fireworks the neighbors were shooting off.  After that he just didn't want to sleep outside anymore and he was behaving fine and not making messes inside so we converted him to an indoor doggy.

Here are some pictures of Smokey from June of 2004.

In January of 2005 Smokey was losing weight, not eating much and was acting lethargic.  The vet did blood tests and determined that his liver wasn't functioning correctly.  The vet prescribed prednislone which immediately brought him back to normal.  He was still taking two of the pills every morning till the day he died.
After becoming an indoor dog we started taking Smokey to PetsMart to get his toenails clipped and to buy dog food.  He seemed to enjoy the outings and didn't really seem too interested in other dogs or people.  Heather also took him with her periodically to get lunch or run to the post office.  He definitely liked riding in the Yukon better than the Expedition.  He was able to run from the back to the front of the truck trying to take in as many sites as he could.    

The last major event in his life was the tumor.  As noted in my blog above the tumor came on suddenly and grew very quickly.  Smokey was not exhibiting any symptoms from the tumor.  When we took him to the vet the last time he spent most of the drive standing in the back seat with his head resting on the center console so we could pet him.  He usually sat in the back seat directly behind the driver with his nose buried in the corner of the door willing the door to open, like the old Mervyns store ad with the customer glued to the window going, "Open, Open, Open."

Here is the final picture of Smokey.

Here is a poem I found on the Internet, for anyone that has lost a furry member of the family it just says it all.

 Rainbow Bridge 

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.
The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together....

Author unknown...