Hey guys.  Sorry for not posting sooner.  I went out of town to visit my mom over the weekend and have been keeping busy (or at least trying to).  Some friends of mine drove over from Indy on Friday night to take me out and keep me company, so that was super awesome of them.  Thanks again for the kind words and support and especially you Sally for checking in again. 

I've been actually doing a little better than how I thought I'd be doing.  I was understandably a complete wreck the first couple of days, but since Thursday morning I've been at least feeling much better.  I'm still obviously sad and get choked up at times, but that's to be expected I suppose.  Still second guessing myself a bit, but I'm not really beating myself up over it so that's good.  I am taking solace in the fact that I gave Wally a great home for 10 years (he crossed 1 month shy of his 10th gotcha day) and that up until amputation day he was living his best life since the shut downs in early March.  I was home most of the day if not all day just about every day.  So extra attention, butt scratches, walks, table scraps, treats, and sun baths in the back yard for almost a whole year.  Even though 2020 obviously really sucked, I can say that I am glad I got to spend all kinds of extra time with my best buddy.

Well my stomachs letting me know it's time for dinner, so I'll let you guys go for now.  I'll post some pics along with some stories later on this evening or tomorrow.  Not sure if you guys are on FB, but I did post a couple tributes to Wally linked below.  Feel free to friend me (or let me know if you're a part of the Boxers group or the HSA holistic group) if you want to take a look.

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Hey guys,

As promised here are some of my favorite pics of Wally through the years from when I met him at the shelter up to right before he passed (the pic with the deer I already posted was actually the last one I took of him ).  Also a couple of stories:

He was such a good boy, so there wasn't much mischief out of him.  Never got into the trash and for the most part stayed out of things he shouldn't have with a couple of exceptions.  When I adopted him I was working 2nd shift so would get home late at night.  One night maybe ~a month after I adopted him I come home late to find a bunch of what looked like white powder all over the living room.  My initial thought was that he had somehow gotten into my previous Boxer Benny's urn and spread his ashes all over the place, so I yell WHAT DID YOU DO?! at him.  Wally responded by jumping on the love seat, hiding his head, and peeing on it.  So I told him it was ok and learned my lesson not to yell at him, lol.  Also, turns out it wasn't Benny's ashes.  It was a picture of Benny and I.  Who knows if he was jealous or just thought he'd like the taste of photopaper, lol. 

Another time he managed to get a large bottle of cholesterol pills out of the packaging and opened when I was at work.  Luckily he didn't like the taste of them and didn't eat any (I counted to make sure), but he did try a couple and spit them out.  Also, for some reason he liked the taste of the absorbent gel used in diapers and feminine products.  So anytime my mom, sister, and her kids would visit we'd have to make sure the diapers and pads were put away when we left or else we'd come back to shredded diaper/maxi pad all over the place and there'd be a day or 2 of Wally pooping out absorbent gel

Finally, one of my favorite Wally stories is his first and only trip to the Cincinnati Reds Bark in the Park (where the Reds would sell a certain amount of ticket packages for you and your dog to go to the game).  Wally's predecessor Benny LOVED Bark in the Park, so I was really excited to take Wally there.  Everything was going well and he was loving it until one of the Reds hit a HR in the bottom of the first and the stadium fireworks start going off (they're supposed to not shoot them off on the dog nights, but sometimes they forget).  Wally was super afraid of fireworks and damn near ran me over trying to get behind me to hide from them.  So we leave the seats and go to the plaza, walk around for a bit, visit the sodded area they had set up for the dogs to go, and that calms him down enough to go back to the seats.  As soon as we sit down the Reds pitcher gets a strikeout with the subsequent fire shooting out of the stacks in center field, which we were fairly close to.  As you can imagine Wally doesn't like that much either, but it's not as bad as the fireworks.  Until the Reds pitcher gets another strikeout the very next batter then it was full on freakout mode again with Wally deciding that we were leaving and trying to drag me up the aisle via his leash.  So back to the plaza area we went.  We stuck around for another inning or so, but I could see he was nervous about more fireworks, etc. so we left in the 3rd inning.  So much for that adventure, lol.

Anyway, here's the pics:

Hope you enjoyed the stories and pics!

Rich

Hey Guys.  Hope you had a good weekend and thanks again so much for the kind words and support.  It really means a lot.  Hard to believe that tomorrow will be 2 weeks since I lost my Wally .  The house is pretty sad and lonely without him, but I'm still getting by ok and keeping somewhat busy.  Over the weekend I sorted through his toys, treats, and other things to collect the donatable items and dropped them off this morning at the shelter I adopted him from (Save the Animals Foundation in Cincinnati).  It was a bit emotional going through his stuff but it was a nice trip down memory lane as well.  I even found some toys that from back when I had Wally's big brother Benny (Benny passed away from Lymphoma a couple of months before I adopted Wally).

For the most part Wally was pretty good on his toys and didn't play with them much in his later years, so there were a lot to go through lol.  I probably kept too many though, so I need to do another sort when I get the chance.  One of Wally's little quirks is that he'd always greet people at the door with a toy in his mouth.  Most of the time he could care less about playing too, just wanted to show off his toy I guess, lol.  I used to love coming home and seeing him peering out my front window then when he'd see that it was me he'd do his crazy wiggle butt shake and hop down off the loveseat to go get his toy.  God I miss that.

He really was the best boy.  Other than the 2 things I mentioned, I honestly can't remember another time where he got into something he wasn't supposed to.  I may have mentioned this before, but but from time to time I'd call him Saint Wallace (or Saint Wally) b/c of how good of a boy he truly was.

Sally - I'm not really sure what the deal was with Wally sitting on the steps, but he would do it every so often.  Typically he'd sit a little lower where the sun would shine in like in the below pic, which made a little bit more sense except that there were other places in the house where he could sit or lay down and take a sun bath that I would think would be much more comfortable.  Just one of his quirks I guess

Another good Wally story that popped into my head was when I first taught him how to give a high five.  He was still young and I had been working on high five with him for a little while with no success.  Then one day he nailed it, so I gave him all kinds of praise and several of his favorite jerky treats.  I thought we had it, but not quite yet as for the rest of the day he would follow me around and smack me then have this look on his face like "I smacked you dad like before!  Where's all of my praise and jerky treats?" LOL.  He figured it out before too long, but it was a pretty funny transition to say the least.

Thanks again for listening and hope you enjoy the stories!

Rich