We lost a friend

Tuesday afternoon when our neighbor across the street came home from work, he found his 12 year old yellow Lab, Thor, on the floor, unable to get up.  He called our bi-ped for help and together they lifted Thor into the SUV for a fast trip to the emergency vet.   Thor was not able to stand or move, but his tail still wagged and he managed to lick a helping hand.   Thor's dog door was like ours, you go into the garage first, then across the garage into the side yard, then the back yard.  The first fear was that Thor had found something in the garage that poisoned him, there were lots of chemicals in a garage where they were restoring cars and motorcycles. 

Later in the evening a call came in, Thor had suffered renal failure, no outside issues were found, no poisoning.  There was nothing to be done for him at that point except stroke his head and tell him "Thanks for many years of faithful companionship".

Thor was a character in the neighborhood, he somehow  managed to sneak out regularly and visit his friends.  The human children in his house were bad about closing the gate securely and Thor would be wandering again, or the garage door would close too slowly and Thor would be hiding behind the trees before he could be spotted.  We frequently found him sitting on our front porch, waiting for us to notice him so we could go across the street and unlock the door for him to go home.  Only last week, the mail man rang the door bell to tell us that Thor was sitting on his own porch, wanting back inside. 

Thor will be missed by his family, they will have a big hole in their hearts to fill.

Mogley G. Retriever