In Loving Memory

Soccer crossed the Rainbow Bridge this morning. He was bleeding into his stomach; basically bleeding to death internally. He can rest now. He couldn't walk or wag his tail anymore so it was definitely time to rest.

In his youth Soccer wagged his tail constantly, even in his sleep. He considered a 16KM hike a good warm up and always did everything with the utmost enthusiasm. In his old he tried age to keep up the enthusiasm but it became more selected. For years I said I could power my house if I could figure out how to harness his energy. Later he could only have managed to recharged my cell phone.

He hated hoops, hoola-hoops, tires; anything circular. When I tried to teach him to sit in the middle of a hoola-hoop lying on the floor he refused to put a paw inside such a thing. When I taught him to jump through the agility tire, for months he ran around it three times to make sure it wasn't hiding anything sinister before very carefully jumping through. He almost managed to learn to play Flyball. He would run over three jumps until he was bleeding from the nose but refused to run over four jumps. He could be incredibly stubborn.

He was taken from his mom too young and as a consequence had socialization problems all his life; then was abandoned by at least one, more likely two or even more families before he came to me. I promised him I would never leave him. I kept that promise and was right beside him as he left this world.