Toby

2008 - 2021

Toby was a rescue that we adopted 9 years ago. A Chihuahua-Pomeranian cross, he was devoted to me personally and was my literal shadow. He was truly a lap dog and loved nothing more than to snuggle up. He got along well enough with our other dogs, but that was the limit of his tolerance of dogs - he had typical small dog syndrome as far as that goes!
Toby suffered from a heart murmur and had been quite fragile in recent years. He also suffered from another common breed-specific condition called collapsing trachea.
Toby passed away peacefully this morning, with nothing out of the ordinary preceding his passing. He had always been a finicky eater so skipping food yesterday was not unusual for him. He spent most of his days sleeping anyway so when we called him this morning to go outside with the others and when he merely stretched himself and resettled himself down to sleep again we didn’t think too much of it. However when I called him five minutes after that he didn’t stir. And when I went to check on him it was obvious that he was not going to wake up again.
I took his still warm body to the vet this morning. They will return his ashes at some point and we will give him a proper burial. I will miss my shadow but I’m glad that he went in the best possible way - peacefully as though merely sleeping and surrounded by the family that loved him.