Pango came to us as a 10 week old Christmastime puppy, and turned out to the be the most mellow of Labs. There was none of the craziness of chewed household items or hyper greetings--throughout his life, people commented on how laid-back he was, how easy-going. He did have a territorial streak more like a German Shepard, though, and was always the guardian of the property. He loved his menagerie of stuffed animals. Over time, he accumulated a collection of some 40 of them, from points near and far, and always brought one of these to the door, or to bed with him, never tearing them up. At the lake, he always amused the off-leash crowd with his habit of taking broken balls out into the water, dropping them himself, then pawing them back into shore, and repeating the procedure again and again.

Pango loved his time in the parks of Seattle, in the mountains, in the lakes, and especially the ocean. His energy seemed boundless, until the last few years when his arthritis became so much more apparent.
But he still looked forward to his outdoor time, even if that became increasingly the back yard instead of someplace further afield.

Pango was our constant companion--I don't believe there was a time during those 10 years when we didn't know exactly where he was or that he wasn't determined to be wherever we were. His absence in our lives now seems huge--he passed on a little over a month ago and we still find ourselves needing to get home to let him out, walk him or buy him something. He fought so hard in his last days in the clinics against the leptosporosis that eventually took his life. The veterinarians at all the locations did all that was possible, but it was his time to leave us. To see him laying there so still, so unmoving, was so sad, and so unimaginable.

This past weekend, we took his ashes out to the ocean on the Washington coast, and scattered them in the surf. Go out there and play, Pango. We love you..

Peter F.