Picky and Healthy

Today my parents put our Basset Hound to sleep.

We got her the summer before 5th grade so I was 10 years old and that makes her, or made her, 14 years old. That’s a long life for a Basset Hound and I think it was a great one.

That summer we had dog sat for my aunt and uncle’s dogs and finally my parents said we could have dogs of our own. On the same day we got Candy, the Basset Hound, and Whitney, a Sheltie who died when I was in high school.

As my dad pointed out Candy was the first animal we ever had from the time it was born until it died.

The woman at the place where we got her said her show name should be something with “MM” because those are my mom’s and my initials. That was the summer, or maybe year, that M&M’s candy debuted the blue color so we named her M&M Candy Blues (since Basset Hounds look so sad).

But we also called her Candy. And I called her “Candy Cane” or “Tootsie Roll.”

There’s a picture my parents have of Candy sitting on my lap, curled up when she was just a tiny puppy.

She was a really great dog. She liked to bark, but really she was just shy, she would never have hurt anyone.

Before seventh grade my parents moved into the house where they live now and before we moved in we stayed at my grandparents’ house. One day Candy got out of the yard and the only reason we knew is because we saw the tip of her white tail over the fence.

Another time she escaped from my parents current yard and someone driving by yelled “There’s a dog in the street” and I went out and carried her back inside.

Surprisingly Basset Hounds have very poor skills at finding their way home. They also can’t go swimming because they’re too chest-heavy.

When I was in college Candy was diagnosed with cancer. She had the tumor removed and came home all giddy and hyper on pain pills.

In recent years Candy has really aged. She went deaf and then blind. But she was still happy. Her tail was always wagging and she still ran around.

But in the past few months she’s lost weight, slept 99% of the time, and just isn’t the same dog we used to know.

So it was time and it’s better off for her.

But I will always miss her. And I will always remember what an amazing dog she was and how much she brought to my family’s life.

One of the funniest things she used to do was lie down somewhere where she’d be in the center of attention. So if we were all watching TV she’s lie in front of the TV or on Christmas she’d lie right in the middle of everyone so you were stepping over her while exchanging presents and looking at her over everyone else.

Good bye Candy, I love you.