Tribute to Onchu

I’m sad to report the passing of my friends’ (Jess and Linda) lovely sheltie, Onchu (pronounced Awn-shoo, which is Gaelic and translates roughly as “mighty dog”). He was only 7 years old and was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer just 3 weeks ago. Here’s an excerpt of a tribute Jess wrote:

This is a very aggressive and ugly cancer. It had eaten away at his skull and had
grow from no visible signs to a tumor the size of a peach in 3 weeks. It had
invaded his sinuses and was causing him trouble breathing. Had it been allowed
to continue, it would have most likely gotten to his brain causing seizures and a
painful death. He was only seven.

In the end, it required two full doses of drugs as his heart was strong. We
always said he had the heart of a lion …  today, we found that we were
right. Since he was diagnosed, we did the best we could to keep him comfortable. He got loved on bunches by both Linda and I, taken for walks
(as much as he could stand), and fed his favorite food (McDonald’s hamburgers … no pickle).

He will be missed a great deal as he was one of our children. While we are both understandably both angry and sad, we are happy to have had him in our lives.

***

I have 2 favorite memories of sweet Onchu. The first took place when he was a tiny boy. Mr. Jess and Miss Linda (as they are known at our house) brought the pup over when they came to see our house in the mountains, soon after we moved in. I didn’t know squat (compared to now) about dogs interacting, so I let Ginko (then just over a year old) come bounding into the room. He barreled up to tiny Onchu, who piddled right where he stood. Ginko literally scared the pee right out of him. Since the floors on the main level of the house are tile, it wasn’t a big deal at all. Gotta love solid surface flooring.

My second memory is from a visit to *their* new home in Tennessee, after they left Colorado. Being a born and raised Western girl, where the air is oh-so dry, I’d never seen fireflies before. So, we were out meandering on Mr. Jess and Miss Linda’s land watching their Rottie Donner (who is also now gone) chase the fireflies. He’d been trained to “get the dot” of a laser pointer as a pup, so when they moved to TN, he transfered the behavior to fireflies. So, while Donner oomphed his big behind off the ground trying to catch the “dots,” sweet Onchu stuck with us. Maybe he tried to herd Donner, but I don’t remember that. I simply remember him being right there, being his very good boy self.