R.I.P Simba

Simba, my dog and my friend.

Simba was a rescue dog when we first got him, which was a really nice way of saying that his previous bastard owners kicked the life out of him and his front teeth.

The first time i laid eyes on him..how can i forget? I was playing Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation (just gotten up to the Liquid fight on top of Metal Gear) I hear the door go downstairs and i hear the sound of panting and nails on the tiled floor. I carefully headed for my door i reach the top of the stairs and he sees me, those brown eyes staring at me full of life and vigor, he charges up the stairs with a speed almost never seen again and he knocks me over, i lay there stroking him, as he licked my face.

Thats how it should have went, almost the opposite is true. (The Playstation bit is true, as is the hearing of nails on the tiled floor).
I reached the top of the stairs and i saw a pathetic site, a terrified weak and hungry "thing" called Simba, you could almost see his internal organs through his thin and beaten body....

In the years and months that passed he grew, put on weight and transformed into the dog that i knew and loved, it was nigh impossible to think that the thing i saw at the bottom of the stairs would blossom into somthing so full of life, so loving and so caring - even if he was abit physco!

That was it, that was life with Simba, i grew up, went to high school, passed my exams and got into 6th Form. Meanwhile Simba grew older, got a few grey hairs on his face but never lost that vigor and thirst for life.

Then it happened, he lost weight, began to lose engergy that amazing vigor and energy that seemed beyond a 13/14 year old dog was gone.

He started to pass blood in his urine (which has been edited out of the above picture) We went to the Vets for the first time (we had been previously for check-ups and x-rays etc. But never because he was ill) After a series of tests and the castration of Simba (sorry boy!) it was diagnosed as Cancer.

Cancer...eating away at him, changing him almost every day. He would stop eating for days, not move, and we would whisper to see if he were still alive...and he would suprise us by jumping up leaping around full of life again, only to collapse later his body old and tired he would then lie there in his own blood, unaware or just uncaring? Who knows...

Then as a familly we made a decision, to have him "put to sleep" "humanely destroy him" or whatever you want to call it, we killed him peacefully "euthanaisa"
It was a hard decision to make, but we knew it had to be done, he had suffered so much in the past, it didnt seem right for a dog to go through so much suffering in one lifetime..and he would look up to you with those eyes, once so full of life, now empty..and dead.

On the morning of December 2nd 2006, we drove him to the vets. The journey was supposed to take 10mins but it seemed more like years. we walked in, we sat down, my mother, brother and grandfather, me and Simba.

We had barly sat down when we were called in, i remember thinking "Is this it? I havn't had time" It all happended so quickly, from time almost standing still to it being twice as fast.

Before i knew what had happened he was being held by my mother and a nurse, while the vet injected him with a solution of Anesetic. He looked straight at me when he died, you can probably argue that it was just the position he died in, but i swear as the needle went in he looked straight at me, he didnt make a sound, no fuss. I said goodbye

I knew it would not take very long for the Anesetic to work and for the overdose to kill him. But it was so quick so peaceful. At 10:24 on the 2nd of December 2006 - his sufferering finally came to an end.

We lay his body on the floor stroked him. Drying my eyes i hugged him and left.

I will never forget him, he was my dog and my friend.

R.I.P Simba