In Loving Memory of our Dakota

In July Dakota's eye started getting a little red, it continued getting worse, so before we went out of town for the 24th of July holiday weekend, Jake took him into the vet. He said he couldn't see anything in the eye, & gave us some eye drops to help the redness. We gave him the eyedrops for a few weeks, but his eye started looking much worse. So we took him back in, they sedated him & took some x-rays & found that he had an untreatable tumor in his jaw, that had already spread past his eyes (which was causing a horrible looking red bulge in his eye) & was heading for his brain. He told us he would have about 6 weeks to live. His quality of life had already declined really rapidly, he wouldn't fetch anything because it hurt his mouth too much. For the past several weeks he has just literally layed on our kitchen floor or in his dog run & doesn't move all day. He quit eating last week & was shaking & twitching really bad. Sometimes you would hear him yelp if he hurt his mouth in anyway. So we made up our mind to take him in & have him put down last week, but I think Jake was really having a hard time with it. He was still really hoping for a miracle, that the tumor would just stop growing. So we decided to give it a few more days, then Jake got sick, so we had to put it off even longer. He quit drinking on Wednesday, so we decided it was time to take him in. We had him put down yesterday morning & I couldn't believe how hard it was. It's one thing to loose someone that you love, but it was so hard to have to make the decision to actually do it. We kept doubting whether or not it was the right thing, when we both new it was, we just didn't want to face it. The vet was really nice & confirmed that there was no way he would get any better & that we were doing the right thing.

We will miss Dakota so much, he was the first dog our kids have had & he couldn't have been more perfect! We love you!

Hazen & Dakota, July 07'

This is my favorite pictures of Dakota, becasue it's adorable & it shows how good he always was with the kids.

Jake, Dakota, & Me
This was taken on one of our many camping trips. Dakota has come with us on all of our camping trips. I think the main reason we would bring him was for him to fetch all of Jake's drinks, ha ha.

This picture was just taken a few weeks ago. Once Dakota started getting really sick, we let him sleep in the house, just on the kitchen floor next to the back door. He was so good, he would never move from that spot. Hallie has been really scared to sleep alone lately, I guess she's at the age where her mind starts thinking about monsters & all of that stuff. She kept asking us if Dakota could sleep in her room, Jake would have let him, but I'm the mean mom & said no because I didn't want dog hair all over the house. Well, on this particular night, Jake & I woke up to find both Dakota & Hallie on our bedroom floor. The only way Dakota would've left the kitchen would have been with some very heavy begging on Hallie's part. We let her get away with it for that night!

Camping in 2007

See what a good dog he was. He was always so good with the kids, they could lay on him, climb on him or whatever & he'd just lay there, Dakota, we're going to miss you so much!

This was taken on the Elk Hunt last year!

This picture was taken last fall, when Dakota ran off to the neighbors for a few days. We called the pound everyday to see if he'd been picked up, Jake was so upset, he thought for sure someone had stolen him. Kendall had just got back from South Dakota, hunting & he'd taken Dakota with him, so he still had Kendall's tags on him with his old phone #, so we finally figured that all out & the guy who had him brought him back, the kids were so excited to see him, they climbed all over him for hours!