Kodiak is gone

We had to put Kodiak to sleep a couple of weeks ago. There were reasons to do it and reasons not to, but we felt it would be best for all. He was incontinent, peeing and pooping in the house when you least expected it. His hindquarters were getting weaker, and he was falling a lot. He could not cross the kitchen linoleum without his legs collapsing under him. Kathy was afraid he was going to break a hip falling down the stairs.

He loved sleeping in our room, so we always left the door cracked so he could get in. We could hear him carefully making his way up the staircase once the lights were out. In the morning he would come up alongside my side of the bed, and rest his chin on the rail of the waterbed and look at me. Sometimes he’d nudge me with his snout to encourage me to get up and feed him. Then he would pick his way down the stairs—always a dicey situation, since he had tumbled down several times in the past.

At 95 pounds and four feet long from the tip of his nose to his butt, he was a big dog. Little kids were consistently amazed by the sight of him—not scared, just astounded. He was patient with them, never nipping or growling at them as they crowded around him to pet him.

He was a scrounger, ceaselessly seeking nutritional supplements, whether on kitchen counters, sidewalk treelawns or frozen snow banks. He would snuffle into a pile of snow in search of a perceived treat, triumphantly coming out with a comical snow covered snout and some disgusting bit of garbage as his prize. Even on his last walk, he snagged a treat when he gobbled up an old pecan cup pastry that had been sitting on the sidewalk for about a week. I had successfully kept him from wolfing it down on previous outings, but this time I forgot it was there. He hadn’t, though.

Being part Lab and part Great Dane, he had bits of both personalities in him as he was friendly and brave and seemed to bond with me. He had what I later learned was a Great Dane trait—leaning against your legs, being possessive? I’m not sure. Endearing, that’s for sure.

Thunderstorms unnerved him, though. Just a falling barometer would send him cowering into the kitchen, huddling at our feet for protection. At first we wondered what he was doing in the kitchen, since he knew he was not allowed in there, and then we realized that a weather front was coming through. Who needed the weather channel when you had Kodiak? Somedays we would find him in the basement, where he sought shelter from the booming thunder outside.

We look around now and see all the accommodations made for him.

For the three years that he had lived with us, we had to keep the kitchen garbage can in the downstairs bathroom in order to keep him from getting into it. We had a child gate set up in the passageway between the kitchen and dining room to create a space for his food and water bowls. There was a dog bed in the family room and one in the living room to accommodate his penchant for wandering from room to room during the day. We had just bought an eighty dollar egg crate bed for him a few months ago. The idea was to make him more comfortable. His idea of comfort, though, was to simply step up onto the family room couch and sprawl out. If you wanted to share the couch with him, he would put his massive head in your lap and go to sleep like a giant cat.

I would walk him twice a day through rain, snow, heat, cold—no matter what. He loved a good snowstorm, plunging into the frigid wind with great energy as snow flakes swirled around us. The only weather that really got him down was a steamy hot summer day. He would plod wearily along, gamely making his way, as I guiltily looked for a way to shorten our regular mile course.

He was a wonderful dog. We’ll miss him.