This year (2008) my wife and I were finally able to afford to buy a house and to make it complete we thought we should get a dog.  I wasn\’t too keen on the idea at first but I finally gave into my wife\’s begging. I told her we can look at the local dog shelter but no promises.  We took a look in the Shelter and saw a bunch of dogs barking and wanting to be saved.  The only one that was well behaved and just wagging his tail looking at us was a brindle boxer.  I told my wife that this dog was the only one that had a chance.  But i still didnt want to bring a dog home.  My wife name him on the spot.  Oscar.

For the next day or so she kept on talking about how cute and sad oscar looked. I went back to the shelter to have another look at him and they let me go outside and play.  He warmed up instantly.  I called my wife to come on over and oscar loved her with a big hug.  We took him home.  Oscar was the perfect dog.  He was well trained and did everything anyone could wish in a dog.  He loved to play and go on walks.  He liked giving the other family members lovies. After about 3 months Oscar lost about 5 pounds in a week. and wouldnt eat unless we made it taste really really good.  we were in and out of the vet for the next couple of weeks, and he could not find anything wrong with Oscar.  finally we went to a different vet. The doctor felt his tummy and found something wrong immediatly so we had an x-ray done.  There was something taking up the whole chest of our Oscar making it so he did not want to eat. The doctor said he didnt know what it was and would have to do exploratory surgery to find out.  He said it could be as simple as something that he ate and needs to be taken out or worse.  the surgery was expensive. We did it anyway.  He was our baby and had brought so much happiness to our lives.

The next morning we brought Oscar in and told him we loved him and we would see him after the surgery.  And hour later the doctor called me in the middle of surgery to tell me that the mass inside oscar was wrapped around every major organ and it would be impossible to cut it out without cutting open an organ.  The doctor said he could sew up Oscar so we can say goodbye or he can let him go now.  I told the doctor to let him go now it would have been selfish to wake him up in pain to say goodbye.  So the joy of our lives was gone me and my wife cried all night.  oscar had taught us so much.  The next day we got a phone call about some boxer puppies that had been put on the market the day oscar had to go.  We went to look at them and there was a girl that had a stripe down her nose just like our oscar.  the only one that wasnt wining and barking.  So we took her and called her andy.  It felt soo right.  she is finishing off the puppy food that we had go for Oscar because he was so skinny. And she is brilliant just like him.  We believe that Oscar was put into our lives to prepare us for what kind of dog we wanted. He taught us more than anything. We hang his chain and tags on our mantle. We keep him in our hearts as we raise our little Andy.

Brad from UT