Late last week marked 11 years since my wife and I had to have one of our pets put down. We remember that date each year and always reflect a little on the time we had with him.
He was a miniature schnauzer. His life was cut short because he became a diabetic and we didn’t know it until just briefly before he passed away.
He only lived 7 years and 5 months to the day. On March 27, 2011, it was a sad day in the McCormick household.
But while he was with us, he lived his little ole life to the fullest. He had fun.
His real name was Donavan. That was the name our daughter Meghan gave him when she got him while living in Lawton. He was only 6-8 weeks old.
I’ll never forget the title of a text message I received from her with an attachment that Friday afternoon. It read, “The new man in my life.”
One can only imagine what was going through my mind as I opened that attachment. Thinking she had found some young man she really was fond of, I was so surprised when it was a photo of this small black puppy with a red bandana around its little neck.
I was so surprised and a little relieved.
We actually ended up with Donavan later when he was quite young. We agreed to take him to live with us and Meghan took her cat that she originally had left at home when she moved to Lawton to take her first job out of college.
It was with the Lawton Constitution.
Before that exchange was ever made, my wife Pat had tagged Donavan with a new name. She started calling him “Cooter” when he was tiny and that was the name he was stuck with the rest of his life.
Let’s just say that Cooter didn’t like apartment living and leave it at that.
He loved living with us because of the spacious fenced in backyard we had and he could go out a little more frequently. Cooter really enjoyed the outdoors and going for rides in the car and my old Blue truck.
If he spotted cows as we drove down the road, he barked until they were out of sight. He might be lying down in the seat and all I had to say was, “There they are,” and he was up and barking at them.
Like all pets, he had his own little personality.
Pat and I have loved all of our animals. I’ve always had a close bond with our pets. Especially my bird dogs. But with Cooter for some reason it was extremely close. He was really a little companion.
Little Cooter spent the last two weeks of his life at the veterinary facility we use. He wasn’t getting any better and we didn’t want him to suffer. So we made the difficult decision to have him put down.
Those last two weeks I prayed hard he would improve. I vowed then whether he made it or not, I would change the way I do some things.
He didn’t make it, but I immediately began to change those things I said I would. Today I am still doing them. For that, I will be forever grateful to him.