On February 21st, we had to make one of the hardest decisions of our lives. Boss-A-Man had severely declined, suffering from kidney failure. Quality of life was gone, and there was no hope for improvement.
Over the last few months, Boss-A-Man had become more and more selective over what he would eat. We switched to Farmer's Dog, which at first he loved. Then he dropped one meat after another until he was only eating pork. Then, even that became a struggle.
We were concerned that his heart murmur was coming back, so we took him for that and started a treatment to help like it had done before. But his lack of appetite increased. We came back to the vet to see what was going on, and that is when we received the blood test that showed his advanced kidney failure.
We rescued Boss-A-Man in August 2017. This sounds made up, but he lived in a van down by the river with two elderly ladies and maybe as many a dozen other dogs. We adopted him about the same time I was cutting back to part-time at my CPA job, so I called him my retirement dog. I was very, very close to him and loved him very much.
He had a lot of physical problems when we got him, including heartworms, but we nursed him back to health. The vet thought he was 10 when we adopted him. I don't know if that's true, but that would have made him about 17.
He was a playful, spirited, friendly dog. He liked to bounce and bound and followed his companion, Pixie, everywhere. He loved people and was the ultimate lap dog. He had a myriad of nicknames - Sir Barks-A-Lot, Bossy, Turd Burglar, and many more.
I wish this was fancier. I wish this was a better tribute. But even after a week, I'm still in shock.
I love Boss-A-Man, and I wish he was still with us.
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