Goodbye Simba

Simba passed away at about 7:30, earlier this evening.

To be honest, I didn't want a pet when we received Simba as a gift from one of my wife's friends about 6 years ago. It was a difficult time in my relationship with my wife. But mainly because years ago, when my chihuahua Cocoa died, I resolved to never invest that kind of time and love in another animal. It's just too hard when the time comes to bury them.

And so it was somewhat begrudgingly that I took him in and let him win me over. It didn't take too long. He was a cute puppy. He had that "Pomeranian face" with a happy smile permanently etched in black fur around his chin. At the time I could have cared less about the Pomeranian as a breed. Now it is my favorite. I now perceive a little hint of Simba in every photo of every Pomeranian I have seen since he joined our family. Whenever I glimpse a Pomeranian I will, from now on, be reminded of our dog.

Simba was originally meant to be a pet for my son. He gave the dog his name. He took it from "The Lion King" and he thought it fit because the dog had a thick mane that made him look a little bit like a lion. Eventually his name evolved from the relatively simple "Simba" to "Simba Limba" to "Simba Limba Loo" to "Loo-Loo" to "Looey" to "Louis". Somewhere along the line he also inherited the nicknames "Fur", "Fur Fur" and "Furry".

Though he was Bryan's pet, he took to my wife, Stacie. Of course, she wound up being the one who fed and cared for him, but I think it was something more. He loved her more than anything else in the world. He would get so excited when she walked through the door and he pined for her when she was away. Of course, she was very, very fond of him, too.

Some of the things I will always remember about my Limba:

~~~He was a barker. He would growl and bark at anyone he didn't know (me, Stacie & Bryan, for the most part).

~~~For all the barking, he was a good natured dog. He wasn't trying to stir up trouble, it was just part of his nature to be loud.

~~~He LOVED Beanie Babys. They were his favorite toy. The first one we gave him was a "Kitty" so from then on we just called them "Kitties", even if they were shaped like worms. At first he would tear them up, but eventually he was a little bit kinder to them. Whenever Stacie gave him one he seemed to have a sixth sense and it was as if he KNEW what she was going to do before she did it. Then he would grab that sucker, find a place to relax, and then chew and suck on that think until it was slobber-wet. One of our favorite games was to take it from him and wrestle him for it. He would go crazy trying to get that toy back from us. And we let him...

~~~Like "playing kitty", he also had a plastic squeaky toy shaped like a hamburger. He would play the same game with that toy, only it seemed a lot cuter because the toy just barely fit in his mouth. I'd grab that burger like I was going to steal it for him. Oh, boy, he wasn't having any of that. This game was...uhh...called..."playing hamburger" (ha!).

~~~Before we would go to bed every night we would bring him into the bedroom for"frisky sleep time play". He loved to roll around on the bed and play a little rough. He didn't bite too hard, but sometimes he'd get me with one of those sharp incisors. That hurt.

It's not that there were several different moments or memories that he gave us. It was everyday, in every moment, because if there's one thing he brought to our house it was a lot of love.

He was a diabetic. About this time last year we thought we would lose him to that. I don't know exactly what happened, but his health started getting bad and then worse...I thought it was the end for him then. The vet seemed to think the same thing. I heard him mention to his assistant that Simba was a "miracle" dog...as in, it was a miracle that he was still alive.

But Limba proved us all wrong and rebounded. His personality changed a little after that ordeal, but he kept all of his endearing qualities. He settled down just a little bit.

I had a bad feeling when he started walking around in circles Sunday. I had never seen anything like it before. He seemed compelled to do this. He wouldn't sit down until he was exhausted, and even then he would only rest for a moment before he was up again spinning around. He did this for an entire day. At times he would go so fast that his little heart raced. He didn't seem to In fact, he would often run into things that were directly in front of him (it got so bad we wound up placing pillows in his vicinity). He wouldn't respond to any of us calling him. He got to the point yesterday where he wouldn't eat, and he wasn't urinating or defecating. He threw up the last bit of food he'd eaten the day before.

The vet diagnosed him with some kind of inner ear infection that was messing with his equilibrium. A shot of antibiotics was given and we were told to bring him back in a week, sooner if he didn't seem to be improving.

I think it's reasonably fair to assume that this was more than some inner ear infection. I haven't trusted that doctor since the last ordeal Simba went through.

But I'm not going to turn it into some vendetta against an incompetent vetrenarian. He couldn't have done anything about. At the end Simba became too exhausted to walk in circles anymore. You could tell he still had the urge to do it, because ever so often he would try to get up, only to fall back down again. I knew then that he wouldn't make it through till the next morning.

Simba was in "his mother"'s arms when he died. We're glad of that.

And no, I don't want another dog. Not for the rest of my life.

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