To the man from Cedar Park, TX who sold a German Shepherd on Craig list February, 2007. I don't know whether to love you or hate you. I guess, to be perfectly honest, I feel both. You are a crappy person, Jack!

I hope someone throws a brown paper bag of dog poo at you while you're working in your toll booth! On the other hand, I feel compelled to thank you.

When I found your add on Craig list for a 1 year old purebred German shepherd, $50 adoption fee, just want him to go to a good home....we were not even really looking for a dog. We were a young family with young children and something about your ad really struck a chord with me. For some reason, I felt compelled to reply. Maybe it was that my husband was a new cop and I was spending every night, at that time, lying in my bed scared that something would happen to him. Maybe it was that my children, while proud that daddy was out protecting our community, felt a little less safe not having daddy at home at night. Whatever the reason was, we felt that your dog would have a place in our home.

The day we went to meet you...and Fozzie, the kids were so excited. Our youngest daughter, who was 3 at the time said, "mommy, what if he's ugly?" I told her, we will know when we see him and when we meet him if he is the right one for us. When we turned the corner and saw you walking Fozzie in front of your house...waiting for us....my first thought was...oh my goodness, he's beautiful! He was such a beautiful boy. Strong and full of life. He had that bounce in his step like puppies do and he had these beautiful ears that stood at attention, curiously listening to everything he could hear. The first time I touched them, I couldn't believe how soft they were. He had beautiful, big, brown eyes that were so expressive. As soon as my children walked up to him, he wagged his tail and leaned forward to greet them. As it would turn out, that 3 year old little girl who worried that he would be "ugly".... became his best friend.

I remember the things you told us about Fozzie. Where he spent most of his time, where he got his training and the line of BS that you fed us. You told us that he had been accepted into the K9 Police Academy and that you had been training him. You are, after all, a K9 trainer.... but that you had chosen to retire from the police department and therefore, being his trainer, had decided to re-home him as opposed to keeping him. How could we ever forget your big, 150lb prized GSD, Fluffy!

When I asked you about Fozzie's Vet records, you made up a line of crap about the Vet had gotten a divorce and took his records with him to his new practice and you couldn't get in touch with him.

I asked you if he was healthy, you said he was. I asked if he had all of his shots, you said he did. I asked if he was heartworm positive.... you said he wasn't. YOU WERE A LIAR!!!!

It was a couple months later, when we were getting his shots and attempting to get him on Heartgard that we learned the truth.... Fozzie was heartworm positive! First of all, why couldn't you have just given him the stupid medicine to begin with? Heartworm Disease is so easily prevented! Secondly, why did you lie about it?

So, by that time, we already loved him. He loved us and we knew that regardless of him being heartworm positive, we would do everything we could to treat his illness and get him better so he could live a long, happy life with the 5 of us. Luckily for Fozzie, he was very LOW positive and we caught it VERY EARLY! He was completely a-symptomatic and was considered to be in "ideal" physical condition. We fed him the best food, provided him with the best medical care that we could, got all of his immunizations on time, gave him his meds, and gave him the best of us.

Fozzie was the most wonderful dog any family with young children could ask for. He would go out in the front yard with the kids and make sure they didn't leave the grass while daddy and I did yard work. He would walk with me to the bus stop to drop the kids off and pick them up. He walked with us to check the mail. He went on 5-mile runs with daddy several times a week. We took him kayaking, hiking, and swimming. He went to soccer games, baseball games, and flag-football games.

At night, Fozzie would sleep at the top of our stairs so as to protect the kids and I from anyone who might come in the house. When I stayed up half the night working in my office, he would stay in there with me. When daddy was home, Fozzie would sleep on the rug right next to daddy's side of the bed.

Fozzie NEVER once showed any aggression to any child. He would growl at an adult if he didn't trust them, but never to any kids. He was the kind of dog that would allow you to pick up and move his food bowl while he was eating.

Once, Fozzie helped himself to a grilled cheese sandwich that my youngest...his best friend...had accidentally dropped on the floor. As she began to scream and cry, I turned around to witness her stick her little hand completely in his mouth and take HER sandwich right out of it. I was completely dumbfounded and amazed. He didn't growl, bite, or even nip at her. I think that was part of what helped me understand truly how amazing Fozzie was... how truly blessed we were to have this huge, 80lb GSD, who was as gentle as he could possibly be.

Whenever I fed Fozzie a treat, he would take it with his front teeth so as to be sure not to bite me. When he took a treat from our kids, he would lick it out of their hands so that he wouldn't accidentally hurt them.

I was furious with you for giving us a dog that was heartworm positive and for lying and covering it up, but on the other hand.....WE had Fozzie!

Our life with Fozzie was wonderful...just as any family with a much loved dog... until 12 days ago. This is when I began to hate you! We had only been home from a 3 week vacation for a week. Fozzie had stayed with Nana while we were away and she told us that he was only eating enough to sustain life and that was about it. She called the vet and he told her it was probably just stress and not to worry. Fozzie just missed his family a lot and would most likely resume his usual diet when we returned. Goodness, how I missed those soft, sweet, puppy ears.

From the day we brought Fozzie home to live with us, we noticed something about him that we thought was due to him being a large breed. Fozzie LOVED to drink. That boy would drink 2 gallons of water a day if we'd let him. On the other side, he could pee like no other dog we had ever seen. Our little one used to tell everyone she saw that she had a big German Shepherd named Fozzie and he could pee a lake! She wasn't kidding. Fozzie could pee for a minute straight. We would later learn that this was a very common and early-stage symptom of Kidney Failure.

We had asked the vet if this was normal and with his exceptional physical condition, he never felt there was anything to worry about. The doctor always said that Fozzie was the perfect specimen of the German Shepherd breed. He had a beautiful face with gorgeous coloring, a muscular body, shiny coat, and perfectly white teeth. Just beautiful!

Well, 12 days ago, Fozzie was scheduled to get neutered. We had decided against breeding him. The vet called me later that morning and said that his pre-operative blood work had caused some concerns. Upon further discussion, we were told that Fozzie's kidney function test was elevated. An elevated kidney function can sometime be the result of dehydration, so she did a urinalysis. The urinalysis was very diluted, so dehydration was eliminated from the list of possible diagnosis.

We picked up Fozzie from the vet later that afternoon, Friday, and brought him home to be with us not really knowing what all of this meant. Daddy was told that Fozzie was suffering from Acute Renal Failure. We were also told that Fozzie was now down to 76 lbs... meaning he had lost about 4 lbs recently. When Fozzie came home, we noticed something not quite right about him. I made an appointment with his regular vet the following Tuesday, since Monday was a holiday. We wanted to get some answers about his recent diagnosis and find out what we needed to do to get him better.

Saturday was a difficult day. Fozzie had not eaten at all on Friday and nothing that day. He went outside to go potty and came right back in the house and laid down in his kennel... something that was completely out of character for him. Fozzie ONLY went in his kennel when we left the house and there was something out we didn't want him to get into. Most of the time, we just let him patrol the house. He seemed depressed. He was energetic for a short period of time and would then go lie down. I got on the internet and started researching "canine renal failure." What I found terrified me and we decided to take Fozzie to Banfield Pet Hospital in Sunset Valley. We didn't want to chance waiting until tuesday to see our regular vet.

We saw a fantastic doctor at Banfield who ran some necessary lab work. Two hours later, we got the results. Fozzie was in the late stages of acute renal failure... Congenital! Meaning, Jack, you probably knew about this too. His BUN and creatinine levels were so high, it brought tears to my eyes just reading the findings. She told us we had weeks....maybe. She gave us the option to euthanize or try a few things to make him more comfortable and maybe help him live a while longer. She gave him subcutaneous fluids and some antibiotics in addition to a script for low-protein diet. Since he was not eating or drinking, he was very dehydrated and we would have to work extra hard to get him to eat and drink. If we didn't, he would not last through the weekend. Fozzie was down 2 lbs in one day. He weighed 74 lbs.

We took Fozzie home and babied him as much as possible. I laid on the bed with him and massaged his ears like he loved. We gave him lots of kisses and cuddled him as much as possible. I got him to eat the new wet food and got him to drink a little water. We fed him countless amounts of animal crackers...which he really enjoyed. Sunday, he just laid around all day and seemed to be having some pain. He ate and drank a little more. Monday, we didn't really know if he was going to make it through the day. He refused to go down the stairs. I carried him so he could go potty. It hurt him to get up on the bed to cuddle with us, so I picked him up to put him there. Ate a little, drank a little. Tuesday, he finally perked up a bit and wanted to go run with daddy. Daddy took him out, just to let him trot around the block. Fozzie was so exhausted, daddy had to carry him a quarter of the way home. We took him to his regular vet on Tuesday and was worried that he would want to euthanize him. The vet didn't think it was quite time. He wanted to give him some antibiotics, antacids, and steroids. We did those for a few days and by Thursday, Fozzie wasn't eating again. We tried on Friday, got him to drink a little and eat some animal crackers. Saturday, regular vet closed! Hate those damn vets that are only open during the week! Saturday, Fozzie was getting worse. He will stand up, but not for long. He did go up and down the stairs, but not much. Sunday, the 7th, Fozzie would not go down the stairs at all. He stayed in our room the entire morning. He ate one can of food for me and then went to get a drink of water, but decided he was too exhausted. He walked around with his head hanging down. Daddy had to lift his head up just to pet him. Fozzie leaned his head against my chest and just let me massage his body. It must have felt really good, because he stood there for at least 5 minutes.

Around 1pm, we noticed that Fozzie had laid down on our rug, next to daddy's side of the bed, where he slept when daddy was home. He wasn't moving. We looked at him to see if he was ok and he just looked at us. He would pick up his head and look around for a few seconds then lay back down. We knew...that he was done. As I ran my hands across his body, I could feel that his ribs and spine had become more pronounced. He had lost even more weight. It just killed me to see him that way. We talked to him and told him how much we loved him. After a couple hours of just spending time with him, I couldn't stand to see him in pain any longer. I called the vet at Banfield and she told us to bring him in at 5:30pm.

The kids said their goodbye's and took pictures with Fozzie. They went to stay at Nana's house while daddy and I took Fozzie to die. They knew that they would never see him again and my son, told Fozzie, "Goodbye, Fozzie, I love you, I'll see you in Heaven!" I had to fight really hard to hold my tears back. My husband and I cried the entire way to the vet. I sat in the backseat of the van with Fozzie while he hung his head out the window.

When we got there, Fozzie could barely walk in. He got on the scale and weighed a measly 68 lbs. Fozzie lost 12 lbs during his illness. He had no muscle left. His legs shook as he stood and his head just hung down towards the ground. I knew that he was in pain. I knew that this big, strong, muscular, manly, alpha-dog, had evolved into a illness-stricken, anorexic skeleton of a german shepherd. My baby couldn't even hold his head with pride any longer.

When they took him back to get his iv, I cried and grieved over the most difficult decision I have ever had to make. I have survived a terminal illness, given birth to three children, moved across country, allowed a pedophile of an ex-husband to continue living, and learned to tumble again after a complete knee reconstruction, but out of all those things, the most difficult thing I have ever had to do, was put Fozzie down.

Fozzie laid down his belly on the blanket with his blankie on top of him...the one my son gave him to give him comfort. He looked so handsome staring at me with those big brown eyes. He always had the most expressive eyebrows. He could make me laugh with a single look. The dr had hooked up the pink medicine and I saw it making it's way through the tube feeding into his bloodstream. I looked up at him and told him, "Fozzie, I love you, I love you so much Fozzie!" I don't know how many times I said it, but I looked back down at the doctor as she was untwisting the tube from the iv and that was when I felt Fozzie's nose rest on my arm.... and then his ear.... and his body went limp. I cried so hard, I made myself throw up. I wrapped my arms around him and looked into his right eye to see if he was still there. He was gone. I rested my head on his chest to listen to him.... I heard nothing.

The doctor pulled me into her arms and hugged me. she told me that giving Fozzie the gift of a pain-free eternal life was the best gift I could have ever given him. I showed him truly how much I loved him, by letting him go. While that may be true, knowing that I did what was best for him doesn't make me miss him any less. I still love him, I still miss him, I still stop when I think I hear him barking. I still expect to feel him rub his ears up against my foot at night when it is hanging off the side of the bed.

My son has come home the past two days asking if Fozzie was back yet. Not because he thinks he will return to life, but because he knows that "dirt" Fozzie is going to come home in a box to stay with us forever. He knows that Fozzie will be moving to our new house in January when it is done being built and that he will be placed on the mantle above our new fireplace where he can always be with us.

Jack, I hate you for giving us a dog that was sick and that we would fall head-over-heals in love with only to spend a mere 1.5 years with before losing him forever. I hate you for not giving him heartworm medicine and for lying about it. I think you are a terrible person for inflicting this type of turmoil on a young family with small children who are too young to understand.

On the other hand, I can't help but feel blessed because you gave us the chance to spend our lives, albeit short, with the most amazing, wonderful, loving, gentle, and beautiful creature ever.

If anyone has made it this far, thanks for reading, I just really needed to vent and Jack, you know your real name, if you are reading this.... you owe me $1500!