Sadly, this past weekend we laid our yellow lab to rest. He had lived quite the loving life in our home, but arthritis and age had begun to get to him the past several months. Although he probably could have gone another several months....maybe even years....we determined his quality of life was just not what it should be and decided to put him out of his misery and onto a better life.Putting Phoenix to sleep was one of the most difficult things we have done as a family. For my husband and I, Phoenix was literally our first child. We married on 8/6/04, and on 3/25/95 we used our tax refund to purchase a lively yellow lab which became our beloved Phoenix Rising Sun. He proved to be the typical lab, chewing everything in sight, running away, getting into trouble, but mainly just being lovable. Before he turned a year, he decided to run from the yard at our first apartment, and was hit by a car. Needless to say, he survived without anything but a tire track across his tongue and his back leg. Not sure how the car was after that collision.
After we had our daughter in 1997, we purchased our first home, which gave us more room and Phoenix a large, fenced yard to run in. He loved it! Phoenix loved watching out our big bay window in the living room, and one day, when our daughter was only 8 months old she decided she needed to get over to her doggie at the window and took her first steps to Phoenix. He was her pal, but no so much our son's pal as Phoenix's tale always got the best of our son when walking through a door or down stairs together.
Phoenix loved going to the dog run in our city and even found a special friend "Chica" while at the run. Chica was in Phoenix's puppy training class as well. One day while at the dog run, the Root River was raging after a large amount of spring rain, and Phoenix and his friend Chica decided to go explore. Phoenix came running over the hill and barked at my husband and I and Chica's owner, ran back toward the river, and then kept running back to bark at us. We knew something was wrong, and sure enough, Chica had gone into the river and was stuck on a branch. My husband jumped in after her, bringing her onto land, and Phoenix was just thrilled to have helped in the rescue.
Over the years, other lab owners would tell me their lab lost it's puppy mentality at 2, 5 or 7 years of age -- not Phoenix! He finally lost his puppy mentality at 12 years of age, but after that he aged quickly. He proved to be a great family dog and true companion. We loved him dearly and will miss him forever!
