Ode to a Brown Dog

For those of you curious to know what the tattoo I will be getting is going to be........... It will be of the best damned dog I ever had the grace to share his life with. His name was E.Z. and if you haven't already guessed, he was a Pit Bull. He came into my life when he was six months old. At first I was pretty leery of having a bully breed in the house with my young children due to all the bad publicity the breed had. Yes, I had fallen for all the horror stories. The pic above is of him at about two years old.

This pic was taken when he was six and a half years old. E.Z. and I went through hell and back together. He was the best guardian over me and my kids. One night he heard something outside and frantically wanted out. I let him out and he took off running. All I saw was a shadow of a man running through the trees away from the house with E.Z. hot on his heels. The next thing I heard was the guy hitting the fence scrambling to get over it and E.Z. barking and growling. The guy managed to get over but not without ripping his pants ( there was evidence of his pants on the top of the fence that I found the next morning).

What really would crack me up is when I had friends come over who didn't know I was owned by a Pit. They would pull into the driveway and here would come E.Z. with his ball in his mouth 'talking' to the new person. Quite a few times they would honk their horn and when I came out of the house they told me that they didn't know I had a Pit Bull and were afraid to get out of the car. All the while E.Z. is still standing next to their car 'talking' to them and wanting them to throw the ball.

After explaining it was safe to get out of the car. That all he wanted was for them to throw his ball. They would get out of their car, E.Z. would drop the ball, stare at it and then them, waiting for them to throw that ball. When they did I warned them that he loved his ball and he would tire them out before he would tire out.

This pic was taken when E.Z. was 14, Jake on the right was almost two and Rosie on the far left was about four months old. E.Z. was such a great teacher to Jake and Rosie. By this time in E.Z.'s life he had been to all three of my kids kindergarten classes as show n tell. He was wonderful around kids. And one of the highlights taking him for show no tell was to educate both students and teachers that Pit Bulls are fantastic family dogs. That it is not the breed that is bad, but sadly owned by bad owners who taught them to be bad.

This is one of the last pictures I took of him. He was close to 15 1/2. He got cancer and it had rapidly spread throughout his body. One morning I took him outside to do his business ( he couldn't go outside by himself anymore due to his hearing was pretty much gone as well as his eyesight). When he peed, it was almost straight blood. The time had come to say goodbye to my best friend. On the way to the vet I stopped off at McDonald's, bought him a cheeseburger and gave it to him. The vet came out to the car and humanely put my buddy to sleep for good.

With the help of my brother, oldest daughters boyfriend at the time, they helped me dig a hole and bury him. He was buried with his ball. I carved into a cement block his name, date of birth and date of death. 12-1985 to 3-2000.

It's been ten years since I lost the old boy and there is still an ache and a hole in my heart from missing that Brown Dog.

So, he will be my one and only tattoo because he means that much to me. Although I am not going to tattoo his name!!! Loved the old boy with all my heart, but not going to tattoo E.Z. on me!! :)

Until next time..........................