Put to Sleep

This weekend we went away for a couple of days to Island Park (that post to follow hopefully soon).  Our dogs' shock collar batteries had worn out and they were enjoying the front yard for a change.  We figured they would be okay overnight while we were gone without replacing their batteries and letting them "campout" in the front yard. 
When we got home Saturday night, Brett noticed something was wrong with Chipper (our little dog).  He was not using his front leg.  Brett looked a little closer and noticed a nasty wound up by his shoulder.  In front of our house were tracks that looked like someone had swerved off to the side of the road and there was a big pile of blood on the road...Chipper had been hit while we were gone.
We took him to the vet this morning and the news wasn't good.  The leg had been badly injured and the option was to amputate it (not knowing if that would totally fix all of the damage) or put him to sleep.  The vet said he had a lot of nerve damage and additional problems to his head.  We decided to have him put to sleep.  NOT FUN! 
We were all sad...it was hard telling the kids, and the tears came.  That is a hard part of being a mom...to watch your kids cry when they lose an animal.  My brother David brought Chipper to us in Oct 2009.  He thought our other dog, Romo, needed a buddy.  Here is a picture of them when we first got Chipper.

Chipper was a little cowdog.  He was like a little teenager on his shock collar.  He would get to the edge of his boundaries and stick his neck out just a little until it would beep and then bring it back in the boundaries.  He would do this nonstop until he would run his batteries out!  Then he knew he could get out of his boundaries and wander around. 
He was a fun little dog...Bryce's little buddy.  I think Bryce liked him so much because he was the smaller dog...more Bryce's size than Romo.  We will miss him, but we know he is better off.  (Another picture of him when he was littler.  I couldn't find any recent pics of him.)

Bryce said today, "Now he is in heaven with our other dog Maggie and they can play together.  And Grandma Orr and Kaiya (our kids' cousin) can take care of them!" We will miss you Chipper!
(The batteries are recharged and back in Romo's collar...no more dogs getting ran over!  It is not fun!)