Thank you Rocky…

In February of this year, I started fostering Rocky, after one of his owner’s died and the other one moved to an apartment and couldn’t really take care of him very well. Rocky’s owner asked if I could take him for a while as he was really her deceased husband’s dog and she had trouble walking and Rocky was underfoot all the time, following her from room to room, and he needed more exercise. I thought it would just be temporary, and in fact it started out as me taking him for one weekend, to give his owner a break and to give Rocky some exercise and a change of pace. Then the next weekend he came to hang out with me again, and it became 4 days instead of 2. Well, the temporary foster part didn’t last long because after the NEXT weekend with me, he just stayed. I took him to get a new harness and collar and a name tag with my contact information. I gave him a haircut with clippers in the backyard. And I had myself a new companion. 

Rocky captured my heart pretty quickly. He was laid back, intelligent, enjoyed all animals and people and loved to go for long walks with me. He became my “work” and “travel” buddy over the summer, going with me everywhere, to pet sits and dog walks and even a late summer trip to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Mt Rushmore and Devils Tower. He would go with me to houses where the dogs weren’t necessarily known to like other, strange dogs, and Rocky would put them at ease. He would just stroll in, find a water bowl, help himself and then look around as if to say, okay new friend, what’s happening in your world? They’d give him a sniff and he’d wander out into the backyard, cool as could be and they’d just look at me like, okay then, and all was good. 

Rocky taught a puppy named Hank that going for a walk was not scary and we could leave the house and head down the street, and Hank would just follow Rocky down the sidewalk. Rocky would even go to houses with cats and they were not sure what to think of him at first, but he didn’t bark at them, or chase them and they figured out he was an OK dude. We have a pond near our house and there were some Geese who had a nest and eventually hatched some goslings. We’d pass them every day. Slowly they got used to us, and I have pictures of the baby geese coming over to check out Rocky and he just stood there and let them. He wanted to be everyone’s friend. And he was. 

At the end of the summer for some reason I got a wild hair that we needed to take a road trip. It was a week before Labor Day and I knew business was going to pick up after that, so thought we’d better get away while we could. I packed up the Honda with food and water for me and for Rocky, and built us a bed in the back with couch cushions and several old sheets and blankets. We hit the road. Some videos from this trip are available on my YouTube channel. We drove from Kansas City Mo up to Omaha, across Nebraska to Wyoming, through Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone, to Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower, the badlands of South Dakota then back down along the Iowa Nebraska border to home again. 

Rocky and I had the time of our lives. I started calling him Rocky the Road Dog. We found campsites along the way, some free, some cheap, some not so cheap, and even slept in a Walmart parking lot one night. We hiked along waterfalls and checked out tons of rest areas. I have some videos of our rest area reviews that will show up on the YouTube channel eventually. He was the perfect travel buddy. He loved to ride in the car and look out at the mountains or trees. He visited other dogs at rest areas and campsites. Always making friends. Always living life to the fullest. Looking back, I’m so glad I had that wild hair and we took that trip. I don’t think Rocky had ever been that far from home and hadn’t had such an adventure. He had more of an adventure than a lot of people ever do. 

Just before our trip I had decided to create a YouTube channel to feature dogs, traveling with dogs, training tips, etc. We started by making videos for TikTok and made quite a few while on our trip. Once we got back, I jumped into the YouTube world and Rocky was prominent in my early videos, even when I was featuring different breeds of dogs. He would go with me to walk dogs and we’d film the walks and talk about the different breeds. He made TikTok videos with me to get the hang of making videos and maybe build up a little audience for YouTube. I wanted to make Rocky a TikTok star so we made a few videos together. 

I had ordered a DNA test for Rocky in August and one of our first TikTok and YouTube videos was to share the results that he was officially a Schnorkie. A Schnauzer Yorkie mix. Around this time I obtained his medical records and found out he was due for annual vaccinations and a check up in December. I decided I would also get his teeth cleaned around that same time or maybe even before that. In the meantime, he seemed healthy and happy and robust. He was estimated to be around 8 years old and I figured we would have many years and travel adventures ahead of us. 

What I didn’t know was that Rocky was becoming diabetic, or had been and it was getting worse. His previous owner hadn’t mentioned anything about that and I’m not sure if they were very diligent about his healthcare anyway. I started noticing Rocky was emptying the water bowl a little more and I was filling it up more often, BUT, we were going on lots of walks each day, and it was still pretty warm outside, so for whatever reason, I didn’t see it as anything to worry about. And he was always ready to go for a car ride to visit dogs, or go for 2 or 3 walks a day with me around our neighborhood. Never seemed to complain or act like anything was wrong. 

One night, after we had been on a few dog walks, he threw up and didn’t want to eat anything that night, but if you have dogs, you know that sometimes happens. They get into something or they have a little bug and it will go away. The next day when he wouldn’t eat I gave him some chicken and rice, hoping it would help his stomach, but he wasn’t interested. Then he started acting very lethargic. He would go and hide under the bed. We would go outside and he’d hide in a corner of the yard, and he had no energy to go walking. 

So the next morning I called around trying to get him into a Vet but was having trouble finding any available appointments, as due to Covid, many were working on a limited capacity. Rocky was now acting very lethargic and wouldn’t eat or drink. I finally talked to a Vet I had a previous relationship with and I pretty much insisted that someone needed to see Rocky THAT day. They told me the best they could do was have me drop him off and they would try to run some blood work and Xrays in between other patients and they’d let me know what they found out. 

The Vet called me after a few hours and said they had finally had a chance to check out Rocky and just wanted me to know that it was not good news. Rocky had gone into a diabetic shock and had something called ketoacidosis. He needed to be on intravenous fluids and get some insulin to help straighten out his blood sugar levels. His electrolytes were really low. His BUN levels were really high. His white blood cell count was super elevated. His blood work was really bad. A lot of things were higher than they should be and a lot of other things were lower than they should be. 

The Vet told me he had likely got some type of infection and inflammation had caused a stress event that made the ketoacidosis flare up. When diabetics get sick, it’s hard because their immune system is already really poor. This ketoacidosis caused a metabolic acidosis all over his body and that’s why he was so lethargic and feeling terrible. His insides were on fire. 

So, I heard the diabetic part and I thought, okay we can deal with that. Let’s put him on fluids and I’ll give him insulin in the future.  

BUT there was more. Doing an ultrasound they found his pancreas was enlarged. Xrays found tumors on various organs in his body. His spleen was enlarged. His right kidney was abnormal. I said, “How did I not notice this?” He seemed fine. The Vet told me dogs compensate and don’t always let you know and will compensate up to a point when they can’t. 

I had planned to take him in for a checkup in December and maybe we would have discovered some of this at that time but the infection and ketoacidosis happened before I had the chance. The Vet told me that he would need surgery to go in and try to get out all the masses they had seen on Xray, but first he would need to be on fluids, possibly for a few days, and she said he was in such a bad state, that he might not even make it through the night. He’d need to be hooked up to fluids and alone in a crate overnight at least a couple of nights before they could even consider the surgery. But even then, once they got inside, they might not be able to get out all the masses they were seeing. He was just in really bad shape. 

I was absolutely in shock. This all happened in 2 days. From what I thought was a happy go lucky healthy and robust Rocky to a lethargic, sick, miserable, diabetic Rocky who was riddled with tumors. I had no idea. I blamed myself. What could I have done differently? What if I had noticed the excess drinking and considered diabetes and got him checked before this infection happened? The Vet kept reassuring me that there wasn’t anything I could have done differently, and even if we controlled the diabetes, the tumors were there and weren’t going away, and he unfortunately didn’t have long to live no matter what at this point. She said I would be saving him a lot of pain if I just let him go that day. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. I said I wanted to spend some time with him and could we set the appointment for a couple of hours later. They said yes, we could do it at the end of the afternoon. 

I drove up to the Vet’s office and they let me take him outside for a while. We sat in the grass and I cried and I held him and I kept telling him what an amazing dog he was and how perfect he had been for me. 

I carried him to the car and put him on his makeshift bed in the seat where he rode on our trip. For some reason I just wanted to see him there one more time, and let him experience that feeling again, riding in that spot, where he looked out the window and saw mountains, and lakes, and trees and Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower, and some Elk and Bison and even a Bear at one point. In one of the videos on YouTube, he is sitting up tall and straight, looking forward, watching the road, seeing what was coming up next. And that’s the way I wanted to remember him. And I thought at that moment how I was SO happy that I took that trip with him. I don’t even know what came over me that week in August when I looked ahead at my calendar and decided I could find a way to take a week off and I said, “Rocky, let’s go to Wyoming.” And within 2 days, we had packed up and hit the road. And to Wyoming we went. In my mind I thought it was the first trip of many that we would take together. I even imagined we might convert a van and travel all around the United States, just Darin the Dog Guy and Rocky the Road Dog. 

After some time in the car, I carried him to a shady spot and laid back with him on my chest. He just laid there and closed his eyes and took a little nap while I continued to tell him how much I loved him and how much joy he’d brought me this year and how much I was going to miss him and how sorry I was that he was sick and that I hadn’t known. I remember also feeling very happy that I had him the 8 or so months that I did. Had I not taken him in, he would have spent this year in a small apartment with an elderly woman who let him out the front door on a leash long enough to do his business and then right back inside. With me, I believe Rocky had the best last year he could have hoped for. Long walks every day, sometimes with just me, sometimes with other dog friends. Car rides. A fenced-in backyard to explore whenever he wanted. And a wonderful week long adventure with his best buddy to see things he never would have seen. 

I had two Yorkies, Ellie and Rylie, who lived with me for 16 and 18 years, and they were my girls. I never knew it was possible to love anything that much. They inspired me to start my business, Happy Dogs Pet Services. I lost Ellie in 2016 and it broke my heart. When I lost Rylie a couple of years later, it was so hard, and I was sad and depressed for a very long time. I told myself I’d never get another dog. I didn’t want to experience the pain of that loss ever again. 

I didn’t think my heart could take it. I loved Ellie and Rylie more than anything, and thought I could never love another dog as much as I loved them. And besides, I see dogs every day, taking care of other people’s pets. I told myself I’d always get my dog “fix” that way. 

I wasn’t expecting to grow to love a dog just as much in less than a year, as I loved my two girls who were with me 16 and 18 years. But if you had met Rocky, you’d know why I never stood a chance trying NOT to fall in love with him. He was the perfect dog for me and for my life. I talked about this already, but he was a perfect dog ambassador. When you have a job like mine, where you see different cats and dogs and birds and guinea pigs, and pets of any kind every day, you need a canine companion who is not only good WITH all animals, but good TO all animals. You need a laid back, calm, confident, upbeat dog who puts everyone and everything at ease. Rocky was all those things, and he was also such a loving dog. 

He always had to be where I was. He would be napping on the couch and if I got up to go in the kitchen, he’d raise himself up, sometimes even a little groggy headed, and say, “OK, what’s happening, where are we going,” and here he’d come, shuffling along behind me. He always wanted to go with me in the car. I found myself NOT going places where Rocky couldn’t come along. And of course, he was my Rocky the Road Dog, and we were going to travel the country. He LOVED to travel. He loved getting out at each stop and walking around checking out all the new sights and smells. 

My neighbors would laugh, because Rocky always went out and mowed the lawn with me. He didn’t want to be in the house by himself when he could be out on an adventure with me, even if it was just around the yard. He would follow along a few feet behind me or wander over and sniff something and roll around on his back and then come back. And I’m not just talking about the backyard. No, Rocky mowed the front with me also, and he never left the yard. Never bothered with other dogs walking by or squirrels. One of my neighbors said if they let their dog out in the front yard it would be long gone. Not Rocky. He knew it wasn’t going to get any better anywhere else. LOL  

I have put off sharing this news. Some of my close friends and many clients who knew him don’t even know I recently lost Rocky. I was having trouble myself even processing it. It happened so fast and was unexpected. My other two dogs had kidney problems for quite some time and Rylie had developed dementia and couldn’t see, and they were 16 and 18 years old, so I was at least a little more prepared. But Rocky… man, he was taken away way too soon, as a lot of things we love sometimes are. I had so many plans for us. I will say this though, the biggest thing Rocky taught me was that it is okay to open your heart and love again. You CAN love again, just as much and maybe even more than you thought. 

Rocky appeared in many of my YouTube and TikTok videos and in fact, I still have some footage of him with a dog named Hank, coming up in a future video on my channel, but he had been absent from some videos recently and a few people kept asking, “Where’s Rocky,” so I felt I needed to tell his story. I also want to thank my sweet friend and YouTube buddy Sarah Wallace, who has an inspirational channel called Your Ideal Self, who prompted me, ever so gently, that I needed to tell Rocky’s story for ME, and I needed to let people know what he meant to me, and what happened to him. So here it is. I miss you Rocky… my road dog.