How do you say good-bye to your best friend?

In Spring of 1999, I was finishing my junior year of college at Colorado State University. A good friend of mine had lost his cat and he asked me to come down to the humane society to help look for her. We didn't find the cat (in fact, the cat returned on her own a few days later), but I decided to take a walk through the dog area of the pound. I was young, irresponsible, and taking a full class load - not the right combination to add a dog to. There were three dogs there that had the dreaded blue card - they were not being claimed by their owners and they had the actual number of days left to be adopted before they were put on the chopping block. As I strolled through the cages I was deafened by the echo of the cacophony of barking dogs in a big open room. I turned a corner, saw the blue card, and then my gaze turned to these big, dark eyes on a quite striking chocolate lab mix with a brilliant white crest on his chest that made him look very regal and sophisticated. His card said his name was Homer and that he was believed to be about a year and a half old. He was two different colors of brown - light and dark - like he was molting his old coat. He had dry, flaky skin and coarse, matted fur that wasn't very soft to the touch. He looked like he had not eaten in weeks - he only weighed 64lbs. He wasn't barking, nor was he even pacing and whining. He was just sitting there looking at me, as if he was trying to read my heart, mind and soul - and I felt it.
So we left the humane society with heavy hearts, but I could not shake the image of this dog's look, not to mention his impending doom. Something inside of me was very drawn to him and I began to consider if my life could fit the needs of an animal. I asked my landlord and he didn't mind, neither did my roommates. When I asked for the advice of my parents, they, emphatically I might add, told me it was a disastrous idea. Of course, that meant that I had to do it. I went back to the humane society a couple days later and inquired about adopting Homer. I learned that he had been at the shelter many times because he had run away from his owners. They charged you each time they impounded your dog and the owners had decided that Homer was not worth that payment. I took him out into a small play area to see how he would react to me and, although he followed his instincts and played a little fetch, he seemed more pre-occupied with the door leading out. He didn't want to be at this place anymore (or so I thought). He always had that look in his eyes when he looked at me and I decided there that I wanted to take him home. I paid the shelter $35 for his adoption and they let me have a cheap leash to get him home with. I had decided to rename him Cassady - after Neal Cassady (not David Cassady and NO, it's not a girl's name!!) As we left the humane society, he rode shotgun in my Jeep - sitting there just like a person. When we came to the first yellow light and I applied the brakes a little harder than normal, he hit the dash and fell into the foot well. Obviously, he didn't have much experience riding in cars.
Upon arrival to his new home, my new dog did not take a liking to the ceiling fan. He barked and growled at it and wouldn't come into the room until we had stopped it - and even then he seemed to always keep an eye on it, in case it came down from it's overhead position to knock him a good one. On the following morning, I let him into our fenced-in back yard (we rented a four bedroom house). He made a bee-line straight for the back gate and began wiggling his 64lb butt right between the slats to get out to freedom. I caught him by the tail as he was slipping through and as I reprimanded him, I thought that maybe I should reinforce the slats on the fence.
What I didn't know about Cassady when I adopted him was that he was scared of just about everything. If we took out the broom to sweep the floors, he cowered, shivering, in the corner. He was deathly afraid of the hose - we could not even keep one in the yard because he would refuse to go to the side of the house where it was laying. On our nightly walks, he would step around even the smallest puddles. At this point, I could tell that he had been severely beaten in his former life. This truly bothered me and I swore that no matter how angry I became with him, I would never hurt him like that again. He had decided that the area underneath my single bed was his safe place and I always knew where he was when I came home when he was not at the door to greet me.
Cassady also had a penchant for running away. I do not believe that he was running from me, per se, but more so just because that's the only thing he knew - get away from humans because they will hurt you. I would have to say that I couldn't count the number of late nights I spent scouring the neighborhood for him, thinking the worst. Then, I would get a call the next morning. This call came from one of two places. The humane society would call to tell me he had been picked-up as a stray. Or, some random person - sometimes as far away as a mile - would call to tell me they had found him nosing around their bushes and came right to them, tail wagging, when they inquired as to why he was on their property. This happened about twice a week for almost TWO YEARS. Those stories could be a blog in and of themselves, but the one that I will always remember was the little old lady around the corner. She had a cat and Cassady had chased this cat at least once to her house, where the cat would jump into an open window and Cassady would sit patiently and wait for the cat to come back so he could chase it again. I believe her name was Linda and even though his chase terrorized her cat for days afterwards, she always took him in to get him off of the street, gave him water, and called my house to inform one of us that he had "done it again."
Obviously, this was a stressful point in our relationship. Incredibly though, I began to see a change in Cassady, slowly, after over a year together. He had begun to trust me. We were living with another dog at the time - a yellow lab named Marley. I would regularly gather Cassady, Marley, and a my friend's black lab mix - Murphy - and take them hiking in the foothills above Fort Collins. There was a big reservoir lake there and one day, I thought it would be cool to let these water dogs do their thing. When we got there, Marley and Murphy didn't hesitate one moment and charged into the water chest first while Cassady and I sat on the rocks nearby. He seemed to almost look longingly at these other dogs that were just like him, but could do something he was so frightened of. At that moment, I decided to get into the water to see if I could coax him in. Little by little, with the other dogs swimming around me, he made his way out into the water until he was swimming around with all of us. He made me the proudest pet owner that day and it strengthened our bond more than anything up to that point. Ever since then, he had no problems with water. He even joined the others in whining and carrying-on whenever they so much as SAW a body of water that they could swim in (as small as a swimming kiddie pool).
And so our friendship grew into a mutual respect and love for one another that is difficult to describe to another human who has not experienced it. He trusted me to be his alpha, his dad in a way. Once, while hiking Grey's Rock, a friend and I had decided to do some bouldering over some large rocks, about 50 feet high. The dogs were off following their noses and came back to find us about 20 feet up the rock face. Since they were both loyal companions and didn't want to miss out on the fun, they were pacing back and forth and whining. We did not care since there was no one else around and we would be coming down the backside soon enough. All of a sudden, my friend laughs and tells me to look down. As I do, I realize that my dog was only about 5 feet below us. He had climbed the rock face - against his own fears - to make sure that we were together. The other dog didn't even attempt it. Cassady actually made it to the top of the rocks that day (even though he had to be hoisted by his collar a couple of times when he got stuck) and that was when I realized how strong our bond had become - he had truly become my best friend.
Our life together soon changed when we moved from Colorado to Rockford. I met a girl while on a job who I decided to eventually move-in with in Minnesota. Ever the trooper, Cassady came with me. He put up with a lot of crap from her and her dog, but we persevered. Eventually, we moved home to Rockford a second time. This time, I was in pretty bad shape (not just physically this time) from the end of that relationship and the point at which I had got in my life. I'm not going to get into details here, but it was a very dark time in my life. There came a point where I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue in this life. Then at that moment, as if he had read my mind, I looked into those big brown eyes as he put his head on my knee. I realized that I was being selfish because this animal I had grown to love and would do ANYTHING for me would have been lost without me around. In some ways, as crazy as it sounds, he saved my life.
As I worked my way out of that dark period, Cassady moved with me again - this time to our own house that I bought in which I am writing this now. Part of the reason I bought this house was the fact that it is on a half acre lot with a nice, fenced-in yard - for him. He really liked it here when we were together. As life had sped-up on us, we always took the time to walk or just sit next to each other on the couch. I may not have had the time to spend with him that I used to have, but he never complained and always met me at the door with (what I perceived to be) a smile on his face and a tail that went a mile a minute. As life tends to do to us, we both had slowed down - obviously him more than me. About a month ago, I began to notice him having trouble using the bathroom. In the past few weeks, this trouble became a real problem. After three visits to the vet and no diagnosis, I began to worry about him. He was trying his damn hardest to remain the best friend I have always known, but his capacities were failing him and he knew something was wrong. For the first time in our eight and a half years together, he had an accident in the house. He was so ashamed the next day, he refused to look me in the eye. Last night, he woke-up from a now rare peaceful slumber on the couch next to me. He has never been a "kisser" (or a licker I guess you could say), but he turned to me, looked me in the eye, and kissed me ever so gently on the face. I think he was trying to tell me he loved me one more time and that he was not sure he would have the chance to show me again. It has been so frustrating for me to not know what is happening to him that this simple gesture made me burst into tears. When I awoke this morning, I found droplets of blood on my floor and Cassady panting like he just finished a marathon (in case you don't know, dogs tend to pant not only when they are overheated, but also when they are in pain). We had an appointment to have an ultrasound today to check him for bladder stones, but I called the vet to tell him that we need to diagnose this NOW because there is something very wrong with him. The vet told me to drop him off this morning and they would do exploratory surgery to make sure they know today. Usually when I take him to the vet, he gets excited because there are cats and other small animals that he has been very interested in his whole life. Today was the first time in over eight years that he didn't want to go in. It was almost like he knew what the outcome was going to be. Needless to say, I worried about him all day. The vet had a full docket today and couldn't get to his surgery until after 5PM tonight. After about 45 minutes, he called me back to say that he had developed aggressive prostate cancer that had cut-off his urethra and his colon and had spread to his hip bones. Even though, in the back of my mind, I knew this was coming, my heart sank and the emotions came flooding out of me. The vet said the best thing to do for him was to not let him wake from the anesthesia and to come down immediately to say good bye. How do you say good bye to your best friend? Many people might say that he is just a dog and that I can always get a new one, which is true. But words written in a blog cannot express the love and respect I have developed for that animal in the last eight and a half years. This has literally been one of the hardest days of my life. I will miss him more than anything, but I know I did the right thing for him. Rest in peace, my best friend. I have and always will love you with all of me.