Ten and a half years...

...of joy. Our Samson!!!

He was the king of the house. He was always our example of unconditional love. He was our "dude", our "sammy", our "dog"--he didn't know that he wasn't a person, and our "friend". He was part of our lives and will always be in our hearts.

The furriest member of the family had to be put to sleep on 2.12.09. He became very sick quickly, but it actually wasn't as quickly as it seemed. He was fighting his problem for many years, but we only recently learned how much he was compensating. Samson was in need of a liver transplant to live. The exact diagnosis was portosystemic liver shunt. A portosystemic shunt is a congenital malformation of the veins that bring blood to the liver. When we finally found the diagnosis, Samson was already compensating so much and he was at the end stages.

We truly are mourning our little "dude", but know that we did the most humane thing we could have done for him. We have terrific memories and are so glad that we had him in our lives for 10 1/2 years.

Here are a few pictures of our dude. Many of you have seen him in person, or had to hold him, because he loved sitting in people's laps :-D He was the camp mascot during the years of Intermediate I when Jim directed, he was our kids' high school mascot--he dressed as a yellowjacket for events--. He was a member of our family.Samson on a favorite chair, with a favorite toy, with his favorite "sister", and on his favorite place to sleep (other than a person's lap), our kingsize bed, which he thought was his bed!!!