Our last night

One day we were on our way to the lake when my stepdad told us he needed to show my brother and I something. We were only going to "check them out"...but 4 weeks later we brought this puppy home. He was the beast of his litter, his rolls dragging on the grass as he clumsily chased my brother and I around the yard.

Cooper was incredibly loyal and always looked out this window when anyone was coming or going, especially his family. We'd be pulling up into the driveway and see this face peering out the window eagerly waiting for us to walk in the door. Coming home was always THEE best thing in the world to Coop, and he made us feel like the greatest human on the planet if we were gone 5 hours...or 5 minutes. He did this thing where he'd squeal and turn around in circles when he got too excited. The higher pitched your voice, the louder the squeals and the more intense the circling.

He greyed early on but I just told people he was platinum blonde. He put up with a lot of stuff, from a 12 year old pulling on his hair to a 17 year old shoving him off the bed, to a 22 year old coming home too late. He's been with me when my dad wasn't. He licked the tears off my face when I went through the low times in life. He refused to look at me when I'd leave to go back to college. And he'd do the same squealing circles when I'd come home to visit. He'd let me flip him upside down in between my legs so I could rub his belly.

He loved to tube. One day he stepped on the tube and stayed there so we decided to give it a whirl. He was the best tubing partner for 12 years. He didn't fall off once and he'd bark on the edge of the dock until we came back to pick him up if I dared to tube without him. He had to be around his people. And people just loved to be around him.

He had a blood tumor on his back leg a couple years ago that had to be removed. We weren't sure if he'd make it through the surgery but he's a stubborn dog. He tore tendons in that same leg chasing too intensely after a tennis ball. We tried training him to be a therapy dog at the nursing home but he was more interested in the tennis balls on the bottom of the residents' walkers...typical golden retriever.

This picture is from tonight. This is the last night we have with our 13.5 year old puppy. Tomorrow we will tell him how good of a boy he's been and put him to rest. I know he'll be surrounded by tennis balls and squeaker toys wherever he goes. And that one day we'll go home to our own resting place and he'll be there to greet us with those squeals and circles at the door.

FP Edit: You guys are the best. We've been reading and rereading your comments all morning and they've brought us both smiles and tears. Cooper had tumors in his lungs and on his shoulders, making it nearly impossible for him to walk or breathe. Though it was time, we were never going to be ready. It's a sunny, beautiful day here so heaven must be happy. :)