Again I wanted to thank everyone for sharing your thoughts and stories, I know we all have to go through it sometime but it's still pretty difficult.
I will really miss sharing Spike with others. He was a very gentle dog and extremely good with children and elderly people - I don't know if it's a boxer trait or just something about Spike that made him so special that way.
Spike won me over as soon as I saw him but he won a place in my heart immediately at one of our many, many visits to the pet store. I'll never forget the times that my wife and I took him to Petsmart, in particular this one specific time that will always stand out in mind. We took Spike with us to get him dog food and a chew toy, we used to let him pick it out himself and as usual people were making a fuss over him while at the store, admiring him, asking about him and then of course all sorts of dogs were carrying on around him and he was bouncing around happily, it was when we first got him and we didn't know him all that well.
Anyway, a woman asked us if her son could see Spike - we said "yeah, sure, but we've only had Spike a short while, please be careful around him but he seems to love children." It helped knowing the previous owner had children that he played with with the children a lot. Anyway, the woman came around the corner with her autistic son in a wheel chair, the boy was bouncing around with excitement, Spike slowly walked up to the child and the child proceeded to pet Spike kind of roughly, tugged on him a little bit, unintentionally of course. In the meantime, dogs are barking at him, other people are walking around, sometimes petting him but Spike remained focused only that little boy in the wheel chair. For 10 or 15 minutes he stood there while the boy focused on him, petting Spike and talking to him. When the boy finally leaned over to kiss Spike on the head, Spike reached over and gave the boy a gentle kiss on the cheek. We were so proud of him, he immediately calmed that child down and made his day (and his parents day) at the same time. The parents were just in awe as were we because we didn't know what to expect but I knew at that moment that Spike was special and he really won me over that night.
It was really quite wonderful the calming, gentle effect he had on children and elderly people, we always thought he had a sixth sense about when it was acceptable to play or act rowdy and when it was time to be patient and kind - he was something else I'll tell you.
Thanks again for the kind words everyone.
Kevin
I will really miss sharing Spike with others. He was a very gentle dog and extremely good with children and elderly people - I don't know if it's a boxer trait or just something about Spike that made him so special that way.
Spike won me over as soon as I saw him but he won a place in my heart immediately at one of our many, many visits to the pet store. I'll never forget the times that my wife and I took him to Petsmart, in particular this one specific time that will always stand out in mind. We took Spike with us to get him dog food and a chew toy, we used to let him pick it out himself and as usual people were making a fuss over him while at the store, admiring him, asking about him and then of course all sorts of dogs were carrying on around him and he was bouncing around happily, it was when we first got him and we didn't know him all that well.
Anyway, a woman asked us if her son could see Spike - we said "yeah, sure, but we've only had Spike a short while, please be careful around him but he seems to love children." It helped knowing the previous owner had children that he played with with the children a lot. Anyway, the woman came around the corner with her autistic son in a wheel chair, the boy was bouncing around with excitement, Spike slowly walked up to the child and the child proceeded to pet Spike kind of roughly, tugged on him a little bit, unintentionally of course. In the meantime, dogs are barking at him, other people are walking around, sometimes petting him but Spike remained focused only that little boy in the wheel chair. For 10 or 15 minutes he stood there while the boy focused on him, petting Spike and talking to him. When the boy finally leaned over to kiss Spike on the head, Spike reached over and gave the boy a gentle kiss on the cheek. We were so proud of him, he immediately calmed that child down and made his day (and his parents day) at the same time. The parents were just in awe as were we because we didn't know what to expect but I knew at that moment that Spike was special and he really won me over that night.
It was really quite wonderful the calming, gentle effect he had on children and elderly people, we always thought he had a sixth sense about when it was acceptable to play or act rowdy and when it was time to be patient and kind - he was something else I'll tell you.
Thanks again for the kind words everyone.
Kevin
