My Buddy Butch
It’s is with great sadness that I have to report that my buddy “Butch” had to be put to sleep. He put up a galant fight against the brain tumor he was diagnosed with on February 23rd but despite our best efforts the tumor had quickly grown beyond the controllable range of the anti-seizure medication and steroids that I was giving him to help control the effects. The decision came when on April 29th he suffered a very mild seizure in the evening and on April 30th, I noticed him having pain when I picked him up to place him in my truck. That evening, after much detailed thought, I reasoned that he had peaked and if he was having siezures again, mild though they were at that point, he was on the threshold of serious suffering and would die a painful death if left to nature’s course of events. He had peaked and was about to hit every branch on the way down. He had a happy remainder of his life after we diagnosed the tumor, never lost his faculties, and was still (barely) able to go down the two steps to go out side on his own. Butch was too good of a dog to let him die a painful death, and it would have been very selfish for me to put him through that. It’s awful quiet around home and in the studio without him. I will miss him deeply.
My little buddy, my muse, my best friend breathed his last as I held him on May 1,2012. “Cheers Butch! I’ll see you when I get there someday!”
