Just Toby

I didn't think I would cry, but I did.  Our dog, Toby, had a very aggressive form of canine cancer and it finally took its toll.  So about a month ago, I drove him to the vet, knowing he wasn't coming back home with me. 

On a scale of 1 to 10 as a dog lover, I would put myself somewhere in the middle.  As a girl on the farm, we always had at least one dog, if not more.  But most were just farm dogs.  You know, just there, coming and going and just hanging around.  As for their life span, well as I said they were just coming and going.  Didn't make a big deal about an animal dying.  It just happened.  As an adult, raising my own family, we've had many dogs too.  Can't say I've had much emotion over their passing either.  So what made Toby different?  What made his life and his death something that I would want to blog about?  Not sure I have the answer to that, but I do know I want to tell you about Toby.


About 9 years ago, we set out to find a yellow lab puppy.  I knew what I wanted, a large muscular male lab.  We found the ad in the paper and drove to the breeders home to see the litter.  The pups were about 4 months old and out they ran to meet us.  There was Toby, twice the size of the other pups, bouncing all over them and dominating my attention.  He was instantly mine.  We brought him home and created a space for him in a back hallway with a doggy door to the back yard and baby gate at the other end keeping him from the rest of the house.  We would let him into the living room on occasion, but only by invitation.  Soon, the baby gate came down and he never once entered the rest of house with out that invitation.  He learned his place very quickly. 

I need to back up a bit and tell you about his name.  As I said, we got him from a breeder and he was from a champion line.  That wasn't really important to me, though.  I just wanted a good dog and I knew in my mind what he would look like.  I did register him with the AKC and in filling out the paperwork, under the name section, it seemed fitting to come up with something rather official and not simple like "Toby".  We did not have permission from the breeder to use the kennel name since we weren't planning to use him as a show dog.  I still felt compelled to come up with something fancy and fitting.  I racked my brain, and couldn't come up with anything that I liked.  Still compelled to put something longer than "Toby" down, I wrote, "Just Toby".  I have to say I felt silly when sending it off.  In the world of registered dogs with champion lines, "Just Toby" seemed rather lame.  To my surprise, when the registration came back, it had his official name as "Just Toby IV".  How cool was that!  And certainly not lame, as there were 3 other "Just Toby"s out there.

When we moved into our current home, there was no separate area for Toby, although we had that on our want list as we looked at homes.  We weren't sure how that would play out, but Toby immediately found his corner in the living room and that corner became his. 

We had Toby for almost 9 years.  That's a long time.  A lot of memories.  We've had many sets of missionaries from our church in our home and most recently, spanish speaking missionaries.  So yes, thanks to Hermana Anderson and Hermana Baumgartner, Toby became bilingual very quickly.  Toby also learned that when the sister missionaries were in the kitchen, but no other family members around, it was perfectly acceptable to enter the kitchen.

It's crazy how animals can become part of your family and part of your life.  Toby was a good dog and we will miss him.