Last week, my wife and I had to make the most difficult decision a pet owner ever faces. Our loving companion for the last sixteen years was exhibiting behavior unlike any we had ever seen from him. Roopie was quickly becoming an angry old dog, not the lovable bundle of energy we had always known. We now found ourselves in the same situation we had faced only three months earlier with our seventeen-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Sydney.

We had always agreed that when the time came that our four legged friends were no longer enjoying life, we would be strong enough to make the appropriate choice on their behalf. Somehow, that commitment to be humane failed to provide much comfort as we waited for the veterinarian to come into the room. I soon found myself thinking about the story of Zooch and the message it conveys to remember the good times spent with a loved one.

I thought about the cold November night when I picked him out of a cardboard box where he was cuddling with his brothers and sisters. From a heap of twisted, coal black puppies, he looked up at me and let out the cutest little howl, between puckered little lips, and I knew he was the one. That howl was his lifelong signature trick, performed upon voice and hand command, to the delight of anyone who ever witnessed him performing it. I also thought about his dominating performance of strength and agility in a doggy field day at his cousin Bozs birthday party. He ran, jumped, and pulled like no other dog in his or any other class. I was the proudest father in the park.

As I stroked his gray ears and patted his now frail salt and pepper back, I was choking back tears yet smiling at the same time. The moment was now here, but a sense of peacefulness had replaced sadness. He no longer seemed angry, but as gentle and loving as he had ever been. As he slipped away, we kissed him softly on what my wife always called his softest part. It was the area of fur between his nose and those cute little lips he used, to howl his way into our hearts.