we took our dog ballou in to have him put down the other day. i think he knew it. he was in pain, i could tell, as the cancerous lump in his head had grown so large he could hardly breathe or see. for a few days he had trouble even resting. there was nothing to be done about the cancer. it had to be done.

we all have been in tears for about a day. i used to go on long walks with him and he was a good customer. he'd smell all the smells and leave big poops around the neighborhood, and he was generally friendly to people that we encountered, although he looked like he had some pitbull in him and they were generally afraid of him. he was also gracious with the other dogs in the house, although one was mean to him and often just snapped at him for no reason. he was a faithful guard dog and took good care of his girls. we had rescued him in new mexico where he won my wife's heart by actually being quiet when all the other dogs were yelping. he sojourned with us all the way up to illinois and it's up here where he met his end.

the other dogs are mostly napping around the house, as his passing wore us all out left us exhausted today. well, i should say, they spend most days napping, since i think they take their guarding responsibilities very seriously and don't get much rest in the middle of the night. in addition, ballou's passing means we now can let our cats upstairs, to take in the whole house - it's ballou that would have killed them in a minute, as he did various squirrels who had the audaicity to come out of a tree and into the yard. we talk about ballou being a gracious, gentlemanly dog, which he was, to us, but the squirrels hated him, and let him know that, as he killed at least two and caught a third who got away with just some damage to his tail, as the rest of him had made it through the fence.

at the end, when we were giving ballou lots of steroids to fight the pain in his head, he was getting into the garbage at night and tearing out virtually anything he could eat. he'd get up on counters and get into whatever food he could reach. he was almost going crazy from the drugs we were giving him, yet he couldn't really tell us about the pain. we knew about the pain, though.

i remember the last time i walked him around the neighborhood; this was not the time i took him outside just so he could pee right before he died, but about a week before that, when i was still giving him full walks. he'd do a long route, about a mile probably, and he'd do a lot of sniffing and stopping along the way. when we got to the busy street he'd stay close by my side and we'd cross together; he was good at that. he walked with confidence and grace but he always had an eye for those squirrels which he could see from a long ways away. there was a time i think when he actually pulled one of my rib muscles from lunging after a squirrel too quickly, but he learned that i didn't really like that and resigned himself to lunging only when he was in our yard guarding the yard from squirrels who came down out of the tree. on the walks, he would stick pretty close to what i wanted, and we did pretty well that way. we saw a lot of the neighborhood.

i am wondering if dog heaven has any squirrels.