A Memorial to Kiko

Yesterday, we had to euthanize our dog Kiko. A disk in his back had slipped and pinched a nerve in his spinal cord. Because of this, his hindquarters were paralyzed. He had to be euthanized because he would never recover. Kiko was our loving friend for nine years, and we will always miss him. When we first got him, he was just a puppy, and his ears were to large for his head. He didn't really perk up about a name until mom suggested Kiko. When we lived in Boise, he would sometimes want out really bad, and in his rush to get out, he would run into the sliding glass door. He did the same thing with the screen door in our current house. In our Genesee house, he had a lot of fun just going on walks around town and meeting other dogs. He still had fun in Sahuarita, but he only got a few walks. While we were in Sahuarita, he kept trying to sniff cacti on our walks, one day, he got to. It was a barrel cactus with long, hooked spines in addition to the normal ones. One of the spines caught in his nose and he yanked away, cutting his nose, we got the bleeding under control soon enough though. Even after this, he still tried to sniff half the cacti along the road during our walks. Kiko always loved snow, and romped in it at every opportunity. His birthday was October the thirty-first, Halloween, and his best present was meeting all sorts of new people and learning new smells. Every Christmas, we would hang up a stocking just for him, and it would be stuffed with goodies every time. Every Independence Day, he would get scared of the firework noises and run to hide, oftentimes under my mom's desk. He would never bite us, or hurt us, intentionally, and we always played together during the day. He was a funny, fuzzy friend whose death has left a hole in our lives. We will miss him forever.