We had a Boston Terrier that lived to 16 years a long time ago. Our mama English and her daughter lived to be 10 and the grandson, who had everything in the world wrong with him a cleft palate being number one never got over 35 pounds, was the light of our lives lived to be 9. When he was 4 weeks old the vet put 375 stitches in his mouth to fix it but the little feller still had one little hole that food and liquid would come out of. We were blessed to have him and when he died we said no more dogs. Ha! that lasted a couple of years.....LOL! Everyone of ours except 1 Pug are shelter dogs. We’ll never be without one and when these are gone and if we ain’t dead (we’re old :)).....the shelter will be the place we look. God bless you for being an animal lover too.
Aw, your recount of his sweet life, brought tears to my eyes. Yes, I’m a sap...lol. Were we to get another dog, s/he would come from the shelter and I know we wouldn’t come home with just one.
When my children were growing up, I bought a house on an avocado orchard, so we ended up with several sweet dogs. All but the Norwegian Elkhound, were “stop-by” strays, or “dumped-off” puppies, and every one of them turned out to be wonderful loving pets, albeit HUGE.
God bless and keep you and everyone you love, and of course, that includes your dogs!!!