I had to take Sage, my 13 year old Labrador to the vet for her last such visit. It's not the first time I've had to do this with a dog, but it sure doesn't get any easier. She was not only a great dog but a great Pheasant dog as well. Here's a few pictures of her when she was only seven months old and on her first Pheasant hunt.

Her first Pheasant:



Her first water retrieve which was also a Pheasant:


A good day in North Dakota:

Putting a dog down sucks. I had to put my cur dog down in November after he fell ill at 6YO. I still miss him, he chummed around with me everywhere I went. If I left the room, he followed me to the next room. My wife said he was always lost whenever I went out of town.

It always hurts to hear these kinds of posts…

Sorry to hear you have lost your faithful friend, looks like she has given 13 years of sterling service. Forgive my ignorance but what is the idea of the duct tape wrapped around her ankles?

The duct tape is to secure booties to her feet. Where I hunted the grass/weeds were rough and would scrape the hide off of the dogs' foot pads after a few days of hunting. That would put your dog out of commission and put a real damper on your hunt. The dog boots come with Velcro fasteners, but they wouldn't hold. I found wrapping the duct tape over th the Velcro straps really helped. Even with that it wasn't unusual for your dog to lose a boot or two during the course of a multiple day hunt.

Sage hated it when I put them on her. Once we started hunting it seemed like she simply forgot about them or was too engrossed in the hunt to care.

It's a heart ripping experience. It's like losing
a piece of yourself.
Condolences!!

I feel for your loss, over the last 5 years I had to part with 3 of my labs, most recent was 1 year ago and I needed to make a decision based on declining health knowing he was on the edge of a serious medical crisis I still have a problem dealing with my decision but it was in my buddies best interest and I hope his buddies who are there will explain that to him. I have a new puppy that was sired by my him who had his sperm frozen 20 years ago. The new pup is named in his memory "Tripp frozen in Time", when I put the sire down I was thanking him for such a wonderful trip we shared, wife said that would be part of his name if we got one of his pups