Our beautiful baby boy Pinto was an angel. He was a Chihuahua/Wirehair Terrier mix. He looked exactly like an anatomically-correct wolf, shrunk to 16 lbs. He had long legs and that shaggy wirehair coat. The only thing Chihuahua about him were his ears. My wife came home one night from work and told me about a dog that had been liberated by the father of some of her coworkers. This tiny dog had been tied up outside by itself and the man had seen the owners throwing firecrackers at it. At this point, god bless him, he rescued our future baby, our first baby. When the girls brought him to our house about 10 minutes after my wife brought it up, there was no discussion. He was home. My sweetie had never had dogs, only cats, and she was floored by the magical, natural, unconditional love that only dogs are capable of giving. He would ride on my lap for beeruns to the now gone Roosevelt QFC. He was my constant copilot before we had our children. And he prepared us in every way for our soon to arrive human babies. Needless to say, Pinto was glued to my wife during both her pregnancies, for that matter he was glued to her from day one. He was a momma's boy. But he gave everyone love, he was a lovemachine. He loved everyone, especially my father and my wife's mother, who are now also gone .He gave us 15 years of love, and he never really had a down day. He slowed down a little bit, but I'll never forget, at his last checkup, the doctor actually said" This dog is 15?" In the end it was a Sunday night, I think he had a stroke. He jumped off the couch, and started yelping, a sound I'd heard before when he hurt a leg, but then he coudn't stand, though he was trying to. Poor baby had no idea what was going on. I knew this was it, my main concern now was that he please just stay alive until mommy gets home, as she works on Sundays until later. I put a blanket over him and just stroked him for about 3 hrs. I pressed on his little body to see if he was in any pain and thank god, I don't think he was feeling anything. Breathing normally, I think he was paralyzed. Thankfully mommy got home and saw me with him and she just crumbled. But he did get to see his momma one last time which is more than I could ask for. We ended up taking him to Timberline clinic in Pinehurst, Seattle and pretty quickly we knew the only thing to do was put him down. We said goodbye to him one last time, removed his collar, and left him. It was awful but I have to commend both Timberline and Greenlake clinics for being such consummate professional, compassionate companies. You people are saints.