Two days ago we lost our beloved dog, Bailey. I'll never forget the day almost 5 years ago that we met him. We wanted a friend for our Golden Retriever, Kayla. We found out that Lab Rescue had a chocolate lab puppy that needed a home. He was born along with 10 other puppies at an animal shelter. The instant we met him we feel in love. The day before we were supposed to pick him up I had to have knee surgery and they almost didn't let us adopt him because they were our 1 year old Golden and they became buddies for life. He gave us almost 5 wonderful years of love, loyalty and affection. On September 9th of 2001 his face started to swell. Thinking it was an infected tooth we took him to the vet and were devastated to learn that he had cancer...Fibrosarcoma. The prognosis wasn't very good, so we decided to do pallative radiation to prolong his life as long as possible. During the treatment we spoiled him rotten taking him to the beach, the mountains giving him table food which had been forbidden in the past. As the months continued --he seemed to improve, not back to his old self--but definitely better. We started believing that he might pull through this. A couple of days ago he suddenly took a turn for the worse. He started having trouble walking and we noticed a lump on his neck. The vet said he probably had cancer again, but we could make him comfortable with pain pills and steroids. The next day he began having seizures and they got worse into the night. We think he went blind with one of the seizures so we took him to the emergency vet in the middle of the night to have him euthanized. It was so hard for us--we wanted to be selfish and keep him around because we couldn't bear the thought of not having him in our lives anymore. He died peacefully while licking his favorite treat..."Frosty Paws". We thought that since we had 8 months to prepare ourselves for his death that it would be easier, but it wasn't. Nothing can prepare you for coming home and having a member of your family gone forever. We miss his licks, his excitement when we would walk in the door, his playing hide and seek with my husband and snuggeling with him on the floor in front of the t.v. It's hard to imagine our lives without him but we know he is in a better place not suffering anymore. What is so sad is that he was so sick for so long we are having trouble remembering the "Old Bailey" that was so big and strong and could run forever. We pray that we are able to be reunited with our baby one day. We miss him dearly.