A Dog Named Bixby

Who was Bixby?

A dog of contradictions: stoic in the face of physical pain but keenly emotionally sensitive; tremendously athletic but incredibly lazy; extremely intelligent but a total goofball; a big, strong dog who remained a puppy at heart. 

He could run so fast...

...and sleep so bonelessly.

But he was indisputably very, very handsome.

We don't know what Bixby's early story was, since he was brought into the shelter as a stray, but we do know that his first family absolutely adored him. He'd been the captain of the couch, king of the bed, and master of all the laps. He'd been cuddled and rather coddled―while he knew "sit," "shake," and "here, boy," it was clear that there hadn't been much in the way of "no" and "off." He had learned that the best thing in the world was to be a baby doggy and in some ways that is what he remained. 

Bixby firmly believed his place was on the couch.
Ideally, tap-dancing on your lap.

How he got separated from this home where he was so loved is a mystery, but my guess, given how he pulled to investigate strollers on our early walks, is that his family had a human baby and Bixby was too much. While he wouldn't intentionally hurt a baby, he was used to trampling around on people's laps and nibbling rather roughly when he was excited and other goofy behaviors that lead to serious scratches and bruises when all this joy comes in a 70-pound package with dinosaur talons instead of claws. I suspect he was rehomed by his family and it was those people who lost him. The people who loved Bixby as a puppy, the people who neutered him in an area where neutering is extremely uncommon, who cherished him so much, would not have simply dumped Bixby no matter how their circumstances changed. If he was lost, they would have found him.

Bixby in the San Bernardino shelter

He came into our lives via a rescue that pulls dogs out of overcrowded shelters in Southern California and transports them to Seattle for adoption. I'd contacted them initially about a different dog that I ultimately concluded wasn't a good fit, but they continued to keep an eye out candidates that fit my criteria for the kind of dog I believed Nala needed. This is the email that changed our lives. On the strength of this email and the two videos below, I said yes to a foster-to-adoption arrangement for Mr. B.

8/1

Hey C.,  

I think I found your dude. I pulled him from the shelter today because my friend (who scouts the shelter for our dogs) said he was not to be passed over, that he was special. He was in between two highly reactive dogs and just the most mellow boy. He's estimated to be 4 years old, though the shelter lady I talked to said he could be as old as 6. His name is Bixby. When being transported from the shelter to the vet today, he rode loose in between a small male terrier and a female pit/shepherd mix and paid zero attention to them. He was all kisses. He also gets the biggest award for turn that frown upside down from his shelter photo to his freedom photo. 

If you would consider fostering him he arrives Sunday. This would give you first dibs to adopt if he turns out to be a good fit, otherwise we would find another foster/adopter for him. Let me know your thoughts! Very excited for this hunk of a dog! He's our transporter's favorite.

Bixby's kennel card with his worried intake photo...

...and how he turned his frown upside down when he was pulled from the shelter.

Airborne Bixby!

We did indeed decide to keep that hunk of a dog. I am sorry that he was parted from his original family, but so thankful that their care made Bixby into the joyful, happy-go-lucky, people-loving dog whose motto might have well been "It's Good to be a Bixby!" He was just what Nala needed to show her how to be a pet. And while Nala may not have known much about being a part of a family, she DID know all about puppies and started putting him in his place.

Vroom! Bixby zooming at high
speed while Nala does a brisk waddle.

Because it turned out, he was still a puppy. We thought we were getting a 55 pound dog who was 4-6 years old. Instead, we got a dog who filled out to be 70 pounds and was approximately two years old. And a very young two, at that! To be honest, he was a bit much at first. Just like a little kid, he'd get wound up and naughty when he was hungry or tired. He'd carry around his dog beds, get the nibbles, and pounce on top of Nala like a ton of bricks, which was not the inducement to play that he thought it should be. At first I tried to stop him, but then I decided to let Nala, who had proved to be extremely tolerant and savvy with other dogs, handle things herself. All it took was one big roar and air snap from Nala to get Bixby into line! She had one hard and fast rule: No tap-dancing on her while she was sleeping. And even if she did have to tell him to knock it off, she'd immediately lick his muzzle to assure him that she wasn't mad at him, he just needed not to trample her. If he stepped on her by accident, she never made a fuss. She spent a lot of time simply shutting him down by pointedly sitting and ignoring him if he was feeling too frisky for her. Thus, he learned to respect her rules for engagement. Since we didn't have her same powers, we'd put him in his crate for a time-out when he got too wound up and he'd inevitably conk out and take a hard 45 minute nap. As he matured, he learned to manage his overexcitement and also to modulate his intensity when engaging with Nala so that she would be willing to interact. 

POUNCE ON NALA!

Nala telling Bixby that he needs to settle down and stop carrying his bed around.

Even as a naughty, bratty teenager, Bixby was able to give Nala the confidence to go from cautiously observing to actively participating in family life. Within days she was hanging out in the kitchen with everyone instead of spending the evenings withdrawn under my desk. With Bixby by her side, she was eager instead of spooked to try learning simple commands. And once he was suitably respectful, she was eager to learn how to play with him. The difference he made was absolutely astonishing. Progress that I expected to take months was accomplished in days or weeks. Nala bloomed and bloomed and bloomed with cheerful Mr. B. by her side to demonstrate that things weren't scary! And it wasn't just a one-way street. While Bixby might have given Nala courage, Nala modeled good manners for Bixby. He would have remained much more of a wild child without her calming influence! They quickly formed a close bond.

Their first photo together.

Within days, Nala was hanging out with the family instead of hiding upstairs.

Often, Nala and Bixby arranged themselves so he was facing one way and she was facing the other.

Nala was extremely worried whenever a particular behavior was being asked of her and she was very fearful of treats being used as a way to lure her, but with Bixby by her side showing her that it was FUN to be trained, she started participating eagerly, if ineptly.

The two dogs became close companions. 

And so they played.

And sunbathed.

And snuggled.

They were my yin and yang pups.

And all that while, he was able to support Nala on the strength of simply being himself.

Nala had been particularly fearful while eating, but with Bixby's support, she gained the confidence to eat without bolting from her bowl or flinching when someone moved. If she was worried, she simply made some contact with Bixby's body and then she felt safe.

In other words, Bixby was everything we had hoped he'd be for Nala.

Mister and Mama, as I called them.

Bixby was such a delight for me, too. During those first months, before he learned to settle himself down, Nala and I were quite ready to hand him off to my parents when they came home from work so that we could have a break! He was so very lovable, though. He was especially keen on snuggling and it was clearly hard for him to lose the lap privileges he'd known in his previous home. I made sure he got lots of bed cuddles to help make up for it. We both loved it when he lay in the cradle of my legs with his magnificent head on my chest, though there sometimes had to be some negotiation about where his elbows went. He wasn't always easy to sleep with―sometimes it felt like sharing the bed with a heat-radiating concrete slab. I woke up many times with a sore neck and shoulder from sleeping awkwardly smashed against him. He also had a real knack for putting that heavy head of his right where it could best cut off circulation to my arm. He'd obviously grown up sleeping with his head on a pillow and sometimes he attempted to sleep with his whiskery chin pressed against my chin or his nose against my nose. But the occasional discomfort of sharing a bed with Bixby was far outweighed by the pleasure of being snuggled up against him. I miss it so much.

During our first days together, I kept Bixby on a tie-down as part of his acclimation to the household. He was clearly craving physical contact, so I spent time sitting with him. This is what he did. 

Bixby's favorite snuggle position.

Sometimes it WAS a bit heavy to have Bixby draped across your lap. Especially since he inevitably had an elbow digging into somewhere sensitive. But he made for good deep-pressure therapy.

Fortunately, he liked to cuddle in any configuration.

If you rode in the back seat with Bixby, you needed to be prepared for him to ride on your lap.

You also needed to prepared to have your thighs badly bruised by his dinosaur talons as he scrambled around. This is why he was not allowed on the couch.

I did feel bad that he didn't get couch lap time, since he obviously loved that more than just about anything, so I would sometimes sit on the floor with him.

He was the very best Bixby ever.

Have I mentioned that he was very handsome?

Total beefcake.

I mean, dang, I never ever thought I would look at a dog and say, "Wow, he's kinda sexy." But he...was. I mean, look at that butt!

Not quite a year after we adopted Bixby, my nephew was born. Bixby was quite sure that he was also a little boy and it was easy to think of him and my nephew that way! There was something very much alike about a toddler and a dog who'd been babied and therefore saw himself as a puppy for life. 

Just two little boys.

While in his heart he never grew up, it was clear from the get-go that Bixby was very intelligent and he could easily learn new commands with just a few repetitions. He was especially skilled at "leave it," which he grasped immediately. You could put a treat down, tell him "leave it," and leave the room for ten minutes (as happened when my mom forgot she'd put him on a "leave it") and he'd still patiently be waiting, not eating the treat until he was given the okay! 

This mindset is NOT
okay for a dog of Bixby's size.

Since it's important that a dog with his size and strength to have very good manners, I signed him up for obedience classes. With the instructor's permission, we skipped straight to Intermediate, since I'd already taught him the skills covered at the introductory level. What we discovered was that while Bixby did great with the actual training, it was a big challenge for him to be in a room full of other dogs, many of them excited or anxious. Bixby was very much a dog that was influenced by the energy of dogs around him. It was a concern to all of us that when he got too excited, Bixby would get emotionally aroused and start to fixate. He'd draw himself up very tall, thrust his chest out, and stare. When he was in this state of arousal, he'd stop listening to me. This is a big no-no in any size dog, but especially in a big, powerful one! Thus, obedience classes became about making sure Bixby always stayed at a low arousal level where he was "reachable." We took Intermediate Obedience over and over again until Bixby found it completely uninteresting to be in a room full of other dogs, no matter how excited or anxious they were. And then, since he did so well with the training, we decided to take Advanced Obedience. He was an absolute champ, usually the very best in the class. You tend to think of smart dogs as being inclined to make trouble, but he was much too laidback on the whole to need to invent his own problems to solve. But when he got into "training mode" during classes, you could see his brain switch on, fully focused on trying to figure out what we wanted him to do. My proudest accomplishment in the Advanced classes was when I was able to stand with my back to him across a large room and have him obey when I asked him to "sit" and then "down." The instructor didn't always teach the same skills in every session, so we signed up for multiple rounds of Advanced classes and he did so well every time.

Bixby demonstrating complete focus on the task at hand.

So Bixby had so many wonderful qualities: he was a top-notch snuggler, a fantastic service dog for Nala, a canine ray of sunshine, possessor of a keen intellect, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and an entertainingly epic napper. Other Bixby facts: he could tell time down to the minute, was terrible at catching treats because he always mistimed his jumps, rarely barked, was great in the car, adored the vet, and needed to wear clothes in the winter because his fur was so thin that he would lose weight from burning calories to keep warm. He never stole food―despite being tall enough to see what was on the table―or got in the trash or chewed anything he shouldn't. He made zero fuss about nail trims and stood patiently in the bath. He was sometimes naughty, gleefully turning misbehavior into a game, but all in all, he was a Very Good Boy.

He loved basking in the sun.

Blissful Bix.

Check out those shoulder muscles!

"Hand over the treats!"

N & B & me at the beach.
He looks so small here, but he was 20" at the shoulder and seemed awfully big when he was in your lap!

Such a goof!

He made excellent use of both beds.

Two beds AND a sunbeam? You better believe Bixby made the most of it!

This photo cracks me up because I tried to take a sappy pine needle he pulled off his paw away from him and he ate it just to be naughty about it, but the joke was on him, he had to eat a sappy pine needle! His face clearly communicates what it tasted like...

Bixby enjoyed exploring the natural world...

...but what he loved most of all was people.

But, whoo boy, in one regard, Bixby was a hot mess

To back up a bit: We knew that Bixby was clearly a pit bull-type dog―he couldn't have gotten that noggin anywhere else―but assumed he was some kind of mix. We were very surprised when his DNA test revealed that he was a 100% purebred American Staffordshire Terrier. Fun fact: most people don't know what an American Staffordshire Terrier is! When Bixby was out and about, he was―to his delight―an absolute people magnet. So many people wanted to say hi to this gorgeous dog! They'd ask what breed he was and when I said, "American Staffordshire Terrier," invariably the response was, "I've never heard of it." I'd then explain rather sheepishly that it's a type of pit bull. I live in a place with tons of pit bull positivity, so the response to that was usually, "My [daughter/uncle/best friend] has a pit bull and it is just the sweetest dog." Bixby definitely agreed! What most people don't know about pit bull-type dogs―Staffordshire Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers, American Pit Bull Terriers, American Bullies, American Bulldogs, or a mix with any of those breeds―is that many are super-sensitive in both body and soul. Bixby, alas, got the worst of that aspect of his genetic legacy.

Bixby's family tree.

Namely, allergies. So many allergies. Bixby suffered from a genetic skin barrier defect that allows allergens easier access to the body―a condition called atopic dermatitis―and he was particularly prone as a result to secondary bacterial skin infections that looked like hives. He was also highly susceptible to bacterial and yeast infections of the paws that led to open sores between his toes. He was tested for environmental allergies and came back with a number of commonplace allergens that, unfortunately, were difficult to control for, including a wide variety of blooming trees in the spring, grasses and weeds in the summer, and naturally-occurring molds in the dirt that are particularly prominent during the wet fall and winter. No matter the season, Bixby was allergic to something during it, and even inside he wasn't safe, since he was allergic to dust...and mildly allergic to people! (Funnily enough, we shared many of the same allergies, dust included, so if mine kicked off, I knew his would, too.) He also had food sensitivities. So we tried all kinds of things, including antihistamines, medicated baths, special diets, and topical medications. He had an allergy doctor. I even took Bixby to an alternative medicine veterinarian to see if he had anything helpful to add. Minor infections were so common that my vet kept me stocked in prescription medications for bacteria and yeast, allowing me to treat issues as they arose rather than having to come in for every secondary infection flareup. 

Those bumps and circles are all secondary bacterial and yeast infections brought on by allergies.

Bixby ended up needing a lot of medicated baths. These baths involved standing around for ten minutes with the shampoo on his skin. Fortunately, he was very patient.

Since Nala needed medicated baths for chronic yeast, sometimes we'd take the two of them to our local Petco's self-service bathing facility. It was much easier than putting the two of them in the tub at home.

To keep him from scratching and licking himself when he was itchy and thereby making himself itchier yet, I made this outfit―boxer briefs worn backward and pinned to a tank top―so he didn't have to wear a cone or donut all the time.

For several years, other than a searingly painful stomachache every six months requiring injected nausea medication and pain medication, our treatment plan worked well enough. But then my life―and his life―was wholly upended. In March of 2020, I came down with COVID. While I wasn't horribly sick, it took a very long time for me to get better. I spent three months isolating in my bedroom and was often in bed for the month that followed. During this period, Nala decided that she was the one who got to be with me all day and made him feel unwelcome. No matter how much I invited and even begged him to join us on the bed, he'd glance at Nala and apparently she told him no. I finally recovered enough from COVID to get some diagnostic work done...and was diagnosed with breast cancer. So Bixby spent his days feeling sad and lonely, to the point he made himself sick. He was frequently queasy and sometimes vomited, his gut was extremely noisy, he had increased flatulence, and his poop was soft. Especially concerning was that he lost a ton of weight, even when I doubled the amount of food he was fed, indicating a serious malabsorption problem. With tests ruling out other conditions, the most likely explanation was Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Skinny, unhappy Bixby.

Bixby during one of his stomachaches, tucked in with newspaper spread around him in case of vomiting.

For the Bixby's inflamed gut to recover, it was imperative that his diet be rid of all allergens. That meant putting him on a strict elimination diet. We knew, from having to feed him a bland diet on so many occasions after spells of vomiting, that he was able to tolerate rice, cottage cheese, and scrambled eggs without issue. From that base, we slowly tried adding one ingredient at a time, gradually ramping up the amount over two weeks, then seeing how he did. If he got sick, whether it was a flareup of skin allergies or an upset stomach (or both), we'd get rid of the offending food, give his body time to recover, and try it again.

I was going through chemo at the time, so I don't have clear memories of all the things we tried, but I do know that things he couldn't eat included wheat, corn, oats, soy, peanut butter, beef, duck, lamb, potatoes, carrots, green beans, and sweet potatoes. There was no food on the market that was free of all his allergens, so we (and by "we," I mean "my mom") had to make his food at home. The final recipe, with amounts determined by a nutrition calculator, was rice, cottage cheese, scrambled eggs, turkey, peas, salmon oil, and two supplements. He absolutely loved his new food and after several months, his digestive distress abated, he started putting on weight again and was much happier and healthier!

Bixby admiring a week's worth of food.

Still, despite everything we tried, his allergies remained an issue. In the spring of 2023, he struggled with some very persistent staph-infected sores on his belly. It took three rounds of antibiotics and careful cleaning of the affected area and the application of ointments and diaper rash cream several times per day for months for the lesions to heal. We were planning to start immunotherapy for his allergies in the fall, which hopefully would've reduced or eliminated his environmental allergies. His physical health was going to get fully back on track.

Bixby visiting me while I was going through chemo.

Sadly, it wasn't just Bixby's physical health that suffered during the year+ period when I wasn't able to be there for my boy: it did a doozy on his mental health. He couldn't be on the bed at all, much less sleep with me, immediately after my mastectomy, of course. And I didn't really feel like sharing the bed with a large dog while going through chemo. As a result, he ended up sleeping in a dog bed in my parents' room. Meanwhile, Nala, as I mentioned previously, wasn't letting him join us on my bed during the day. So Bixby, who needed cuddles to thrive, was cast out. I felt so bad. But I wasn't well enough to do whatever would have been necessary to make Nala stop giving him the stink eye. She really was a jerk! She took to doing things like walking over to where he was laying down and standing over him until he moved, then taking his spot. Bixby was flat-out depressed―we even tried putting him on antidepressants, to no avail―and there's nothing so sad as seeing a dog whose previous motto was "It's Good to be a Bixby!" living a life where he felt it wasn't so good to be a Bixby. It was a long time before he would sleep in my room again after I was well, even though he'd been invited―he was worried that I might change my mind and put him out again and couldn't face that prospect. After he'd been sleeping back with me for a while, my mom thought his big dog bed could be moved out of her room and back into my office. (Where, it should be noted, Nala also made him feel unwelcome.) This made him horribly sick. He thought maybe my parents in general and my mom in particular didn't love him anymore. So his bed went back into their bedroom and he was okay, but it was sad to see him so vulnerable.

Nala is extremely jealous in this photo that Bixby is in my lap and she isn't.

Nala hovering over Bixby in order to make him give up his spot. 

Previously only worried about wind, Bixby got a lot more anxious about many things and anxiety meant stomachaches. He was especially afraid that he would get a stomachache when he was worried, creating a feedback loop. I didn't blame him for fearing his severest stomachaches. Sometimes, before the nausea injection had taken effect and he could take his pain medication, he would be in so much agony he couldn't even move. I'd taken to keeping some Pepto-Bismol by my bed to give him if he got queasy in the night and noticed that most of the time he immediately felt better after being given the Pepto-Bismol―i.e., it was working as a placebo: he knew that he wouldn't feel sick and that made his incipient nausea go away. I took to giving him mini marshmallows without half a tablet of Pepto and most of the time that did the trick. Still, there was a lot of holding him in the night and playing Beethoven to calm him and other rather exhausting (for me) soothing that had to go on. I'd started trying some calming treats for him―it was no easy feat to find ones that didn't contain anything he was allergic to―and some knockout drugs for scary situations like fireworks, which hadn't bothered him before I got sick. The next step down the road would have been prescription anxiety medication. We would have worked it out, though. If I stayed healthy and he stayed healthy, while he may not have gone all the way back to Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, his emotional resilience would have rebounded. We'd already started on that road, because I had found the perfect confidence-booster for my boy.

Cancer had made me reassess my priorities and I decided that one thing I wanted to do was get strong enough to do agility with Bixby. I knew, with his athleticism and his intelligence, he had the makings of a good agility dog. By the time I was done with chemo and was sufficiently recovered to start on the next phase of my life, I'd been in bed for the better part of a year and half. My legs were like toothpicks and walking around the block was stretch. So I started working out in a local therapy pool with the specific goal of getting strong enough to do agility with Bixby. First, we did another round of Advanced Obedience to give Bixby a refresher on obeying commands from a distance. When I was fit and he was primed, I signed him up for an assessment at an agility facility to determine what his starting level should be. He proved utterly fearless on the equipment and was attentive to commands, so the trainer said, "Sign him up! I've got space in my Advanced Intro/Intermediate Class." 

Agility Bixby!

An agility course map.

He was such a champ. I was so proud when the trainer, during our third class, told everyone how hugely talented he was and how talented I was as a handler and it was so impressive because we were just beginners. I was astonished when, early on, she said he had the makings of a great competition dog! I had never considered having Bixby compete in agility trials, but when that seed was planted, I started thinking of that as being our goal. If we never competed, that would be fine, we both were having a blast, but the idea that I had a dog who could be competitive? Wow! And I was so flattered when the trainer asked if I would be willing to keep training with her. Which we did! I liked that the class atmosphere she created was really low-key and positive. It was okay to make mistakes and it was okay for your dog to make mistakes and that certainly made it easier for me to learn. Everyone was working at their own level, anyway. So I learned from watching the more experienced handlers and the trainer really only stepped in when Bixby and I needed specific help or were ready to up our game. 

Bixby's favorite obstacle was the A-frame.

He was a wonderful jumper.

The weave poles are the toughest obstacle!

Bixby had so much fun. I had so much fun. And everyone loved Bixby! He made people laugh! Everyone assumed from his gleeful behavior that he was a very young dog, not a guy well into middle age. He was so full of joy. Which, as the trainer said, was the most important thing, much more important than doing agility well. But Bixby did do agility well. He learned very quickly. He loved the obstacles and he loved wanting to know what I was asking him to do next and he definitely loved the turkey he got for treats. Oh, he certainly had his moments when he didn't focus or wanted to run around like a goofball, but all the dogs did, even the trainer's dog. But he was improving steadily and I was starting to think that by the time we got his weave poles worked out, say, in six month's time, he might be ready to start competing at the beginner's level.

We did not have time to work out his weave poles.

This is the last photo I took of Bixby.

At 5:36 on July 6, 2023, I gave Bixby his pre-dinner medicine and he was fine. At 6:00 p.m., when my dad got home from work, he was fine. When I came downstairs at 6:36 to feed the dogs, Bixby was not fine. He didn't stand up. He didn't even lift his head up. I'll remember that always, I think, Bixby laying there on the carpet, dressed in the outfit I used to protect his almost-healed belly sores, starting intently into my eyes, not getting up. We got him to the emergency vet and I was still thinking his collapse probably had something to do with those multiple rounds of antibiotics throwing his chemistry off, maybe exacerbated by the heat. What I did not expect was the vet to come in to tell us Bixby was dying.

It turns out that he had hemangiosarcoma, a rapidly growing vascular cancer that develops most often on the spleen, liver, or heart and causes the dog no problems whatsoever until the tumor ruptures and the dog dies from catastrophic internal bleeding. Even if the bleed is detected in time to prevent a full rupture, the cancer is highly malignant and usually already spread widely through the body, so surgery may only prolong the dog's life by a matter of weeks. The other option, the vet said, was euthanasia.

I didn't want Bixby's last days to be spent recovering from a surgery that couldn't save him. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered―Bixby would not have lived long enough for the on-call surgeon to arrive.

By the time we were moved into the clinic's "comfort room" and Bixby had been brought in after given some pain medicine, he was really already gone. He'd turned completely inward. I don't know if he was even aware I was there. I hope so and I hope it gave him some comfort. I cradled his magnificent head and cried and told him all the things I wanted him to know and then I sang to him as the drugs took hold. His breathing had already become so shallow that even though I was nose-to-nose with him in those final moments, I couldn't tell for sure when his breath stopped. And then Bixby's collar was in my hands and we were walking out of the clinic. It was still light out. He'd been fine at 6:00 p.m. and was dead at 9:00. My beautiful golden boy, the dog that had brought us so much joy for five years and eleven months, was gone. He was just eight years old.

I told Bixby in those final moments on the vet's floor that if it is indeed true that heaven is the place where every dog you've ever loved comes running to greet you, I expected him to be at the front of the pack.

I also told Bixby that he would never die as long as anyone was still alive to remember him, that even after I was gone, he would live on in my nephew's heart, that he could still be alive eighty years from now, because he was so beloved.

That I do believe.

It's been hard. Of course it's hard. He'd had so much presence. He required so much care. He was so much fun. And we'd been right in the middle of everything! Agility was going so well! His emotional resilience had rebounded to the point that he was no longer letting Nala push him around! I'd finally found the perfect toy for Bixby and we'd developed the perfect game to play with it! I'd quite reasonably thought I had at least four more years. I'd been preparing myself for elderly Nala's passing and instead it was my golden boy who was gone. Also, it turned out Nala had still been relying on him for her sense of safety much more than we realized and it was heartbreaking to see her regress. We all miss him and mourn him. 

Some of him lives on now in Nala, and, after Nala, in all the dogs that I love because of how he changed Nala and what that taught me.

And he lives on in me, of course.

I will love other dogs in my life. But there will never be another one quite like Bixby. Bix. Bixer. Bixbean. Bixerdoodle. Bixby Bond. B. Mr. B. Mister. Bud. Buddy Boy.

My beautiful boy. Sensitive and stoic. Fragile and powerful. One hundred percent gorgeous and one hundred percent heart.

Bixby Alexander

d. July 6, 2023

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Demerits! Bixby's Collected Complaints

Now Cracks a Noble Heart: Thoughts on Loss and Bixby

Introducing Nala