ted! {april 5, 2022}

One year ago today we said good-bye to our big, sweet, one-of-a-kind dog, Ted. He was 9 years old and had epilepsy. He went into a seizure sequence that could not be broken and we made the heart breaking decision to euthanize him.

My daughter adopted Ted from Cincinnati Lab Rescue in 2013. He had been dumped on the side of a road, someone found him, and the kind people at the rescue took him in even though he didn't have an ounce of Lab in him. When she adopted him, she was told that he was two years old, 90 pounds, and he was done growing. Well, come to find out, he was one year old and he grew to 150 pounds of love and rascaliness.

Ted lived with my daughter for a couple of years but her busy career and ultimate move to Chicago to a small apartment was not a good fit for him so he came to live with T and me. She so wanted to keep him. She gave it her best effort but it wasn't fair to her or Ted for him to be an urban dog. 

Fast forward to 2020. T and I sold our house and moved to downtown Dayton. No more opening the back door to a fenced in yard to let him out. Ted and I became walking buddies in every kind of weather at least twice a day. While we walked, I took photos of downtown Dayton to share on social media. And then I got the idea to put Ted in my photos...a big dog telling stories about his strolls around town with his walker-in-chief. "Tales from Ted" was born and friends really enjoyed hearing about our adventures. This was during the pandemic shutdown and walks with Ted became a sort of therapy to take away the stress of the unknown from the virus and an avenue to connect and bring smiles to people via social media. Also as Ted and I took our slow walks around town, we found street money, coins that people had dropped here and there, many times by the parking meters. Our grand total was $50.00 which was then donated to Cincinnati Lab Rescue.

The other day T and I were grocery shopping and I saw this bottle of pinot noir.

I do believe it looks like a sophisticated Ted. We're going to have a glass tonight to toast the big guy and all the love and happy memories he brought us.