Our sweet Parrish was peacefully put to sleep on March 15th. We had almost 4 years with this incredible dog.

My husband and I were so lucky to have gotten such a great dog. After all that he had been through, Hurricane Katrina, heartworm, losing most of his teeth (they were almost all broken off following the hurricane probably due to being in captivity and trying to get free), the worst case of spondylosis that the vet had ever seen and then a cancer diagnosis after we had only had him about 1 year. Whew! You would never have known that any of that had happened to him because he was still the sweetest dog I’ve ever had or known.

We got him in the May of the year following the hurricane in 2005. He was such a sweetie from the first day we brought him home. So devoted although we had just met! His arthritis (horrible spinal arthritis) and age kept him fairly limited for walk distance but we were out anyway usually twice a day for our walk around the block. I think the change of seasons was always a mystery to Parrish being a southern boy – but he looked really smart in his bright red turtle neck sweater in the winter! Rolling in the snow was pretty fun too!

It didn’t take us two minutes to fall head over heels with Parrish. The cancer diagnosis (the anal sac aggressive kind) was a huge disappointment for us because we wanted him to live forever. The statistics didn’t look good. 6 months? A year? We had two tiny tumors removed about 14 months apart and hoped another wouldn’t develop, but it did. Two more years went by and we couldn’t figure out why this cancer didn’t seem to affect him. But we were thrilled to still have him and he was clearly happy to be here.

Parrish’s last months were really a roller coaster. A week of really good days then a few days that were not so good. We suppose that the cancer was perhaps taking its toll somewhere. So hard to part with him but it was clearly time for him to leave us. He will remain in our hearts forever.