A dog story

Hey this is gonna be a somewhat different post. Almost exactly 1 year ago my at the time 15 year old dog died. Today I felt like I want to imortalize he beautiful story here, that’s why I’m gonna tell you, the story of a beautiful dog named Chico.

To tell you his story, I need to give you some background.

I always liked animals, but aside from turtles when I was very young (yes, turtles) I never had a dog or cat. For most of my life I lived in small apartments, so my mom didn’t like the idea of having a animal that wouldn’t have enough space to play around and run.

In 2018 I found a dog in the streets near my school. She was apparently hurt, so I called my mom and went to a nearby store to get some plastic I could wrap around her body so we could put her in the car. After that we had her checked out in a vet. We learned that it was a tumour, but that we could try treating it. We went for a couple months trying to help her, her first tumour got treated, but after sometime being completely fine, she started growing others and others tumours.

After some time, where she couldn’t even walk anymore, she eventually died. It was less than 6 months, but was still hard that, although we did everything that we could, she eventually couldn’t handle it. What we could take from this was that we made her have a better end of life than dying alone in the streets.

Couple months passed and we decided to actually go to a shelter to find a dog. A the beginning we were not really sure if we would have the dog at home (because of the reasons I said above) or just pay for the dog, since in this shelter you could choose a dog to pay for their whole expenses without having them at home, only visiting him when you wanted. When we went for the shelter we checked some of the dogs that you could adopt, but ended up deciding on a very different option. While my mom was chatting with one of the people there, she asked, “Are there any dogs that you think that they don’t have a chance of being adopted?” and the person said “yes” and lead us to the backside of the shelter. That’s where we found Chico.

Chico was an old dog already, around 8 years, not only that, but he, although extremely docile with humans, would bark at most dogs at a 2 km radius, which made him not really a easy pick in the shelter for most people. That’s why he was in the backside, they weren’t trying to have someone adopt him anymore. He was old. He had passed through a lot already, and that includes around 3 years in the streets, multiple dog fights and multiple abandonments.

Well, lucky us, because we instantly LOVED chico. Like I said, he was docile with humans, he was pretty quiet and calm, napping for most of the day like a cat would. So, on the same day, we decided that we wanted him! And to explain his name well… he was 8 years already, so he already had the name “chico”. No need for a real name :)

So that’s how we got chico, we spent a lot of time with him for this 5 years we were with him. He was already old, so although he would play with us, he would most of the time be sitting in his place and walking around just to ask for some head pats. He was not that energized dog that would run the house seven times in 5 seconds, actually, if he started running even slowly for 3 seconds I would already be smiling from ear to ear.

In 2020, things got a little hard. With covid and lockdown, we couldn’t have chico go out a lot, like I said, Although he liked just sleeping all day, a dog or human can not be healthy by just sleeping. That continued through sometime, even when we could already walk him outside, chico could not walk that much anymore, he would be tired and clearly ask to comeback home.

Some months passed and something unexpected happened. While my mom was running, a street dog saw her and started following her. He followed, and followed, and followed and… Wait, it has been 5 KM and he is STILL FOLLOWING HER? And that’s how my third dog enters the story, luke!

We didn’t consider getting another dog after getting Chico. Mostly because like I said, Chico didn’t really like other dogs. Luke had different plans tho. He basically forced adoption, following my mom until she got home.

We firstly picked Luke to find someone to adopt him. At this point, we lived in house, that although didn’t had a garden for dogs to play, had more space than the little apartments where we could house another dog. We tried finding Luke’s owner. We tried finding someone that would adopt him, but in the end, not only we didn’t find anything, our affection have grown bigger, and we tried to make Luke and Chico work together.

It took some time, but it kinda worked! Chico would get mad at Luke sometimes, because Luke was the opposite of him. Luke was 1 year old, so he would constantly run around the house and try to play with Chico, that would get mad because he just wanted to sleep.

That dynamic actually worked really well as a older sibling and younger sibling way. Chico was now a little eager to go walking, almost like he was trying to compete with Luke, He was even trying to run at some points! It also got to the point that they would nap together sometimes.

That was a good couple of months. But at the tale end of 2023, Chico started getting worst pretty fast. Different than my first dog, who had more of a clear problem, Chico was honestly, just getting too old. He was blind, he had stomach problems, he had dementia, he was weak, he couldn’t breathe properly. It got to the point that I was getting him on my hands and helping him urinate, then putting him back in his bed. He was not really living anymore, he was just there, suffering.

The last month we were taking turns to sleep on the floor with him, checking on him, seeing if needed anything, feeding him, cleaning him cuz he couldn’t even control his stomach anymore and would just shit on the bed. Then, one day, after checking a couple of vets and options, we decided that he should be put down. There was no treatment, believe me, I would sell my kidney if there was. The only thing besides that we could do is pay for him to live in a machine on a hospital for the rest of his days, without us, without care, just surviving, not living.

The next day after he had passed away, I woke up, I went to have a morning coffee, I looked at where Chico would sleep and just broke down crying. Things were still very hard for a solid 2 weeks, where not only memories would continue to pass in my brain, but I would also see Luke searching for him, every single day.

After sometime I started slowly coming into terms with things, not only that Chico was dead, but that me and my family did everything we could, to make his life better, everything to make his last years here be great, and I can confidently say that. Chico was not only a dog, but my very best friend on time I needed.

What you can take away from this

This text was hard to write. I cried multiple times while trying to find more photos and while revisiting my memory to write it down my experiences. I also believe this was soul crushing to read, and if it was, I’m sorry, but that’s how I write. With my head full of emotions. And if I’m describing a sad thing, I will transmit this emotion through text.

In the end I’m also sorry, this text was not really for you my reader, also not for me. It was for my dog, It’s a way to have him living in the memories of people, and in this text and weird blog. But, for you that read all the way, let’s try closing this in a better note!

What you can take away from this is, try helping animals. There are a lot of street animals in this world. Try adopting one, and if you can’t, try helping one when you can, through money, charity or any form big or small that you can do it.

Also, this whole experience was not a bad thing, not only having my first two dogs was really especial and a unique and amazing experience, it also made us make a bunch of things that would maybe not have done it, like having this bunch of dogs now! The goal is always the same, have rescued dogs have a second chance on living a happy life, that they deserve it.

There is also other things that we do in order to help animals, but this post would be too long with me explaining everything. Also this post is the story of Chico, he is the main character here. Thank you Chico for being on my life, and thank you, reader, for reading until now.

See ya