Darby........during the Christmas of 2003 my wife brought me a little furball with a wagging tail. This little furball with the wagging tail would grow to almost 200lbs, actually he weighed 198lbs today. He is a mix of a Rottweiler & Mastiff with brindle coloring.
I was elated and never in my life did I have a dog this large or one that tested me for love, obedience and trust. He and I enjoyed many walks, many rub downs (oh how I loved to rub him down), it seemed the older he got the more he enjoyed the rubdowns! However his large size was a blessing for him as he would sit at the dinner table and wouldn't need a chair and rested his head on the table as he was waiting for a treat or a scrape of food. Darby was also the connoisseur for deserts, busy bones, rawhides & chickie sticks and any thing else he could wrap his mouth around. He also thoroughly enjoyed watermelon!!
At a young age Darby stole many napkins off the dinner table and would proceed to eat them until he got is treat, I can remember him devouring an entire chicken one night, and then a box of chocolates. He was tummy up in his bed that night!
My wife and I were not Darby's owners as to we were his humans that were entrusted with caring for him, which included long walks at the beach, nightly strolls under the stars, slipping and sliding in the snow and surviving a few Hurricanes. A couple of things that Darby had a dislike for was CATS, string beans, and going to the vet. He hated the vet and would have to be dragged out of the car, and coaxed into the exam office, on most occasions he just laid down outside and the vets office and would not move. It's really tough to get a 200lb dog to move when he doesn't want to.
In fact one year when the wife and I went on vacation my father in-law was in charge getting Darby out, on one of those vacations my Father in Law slipped going down the stairs and grabbed DB (Darby's nick name) and DB held like a rock and stopped my Father in Law from hitting the concrete! All in all DB was a champion of mixed breeds.
At 9 1/2 years DB still had spunk, liked his walks, and was always yakking at my wife to give him additional treats, it was not uncommon that after eating 4 cans of food, whatever he could grub from the table that he would also get and additional 2 busy bones or chicky sticks at night. My wife and Darby had a special relationship since she was the first one home every day, he would climb into the bay window and start wagging his 3 foot tail and you could hear it hitting the window from the outside of the house, DB would then exit the window and head for the door to great his "mommy". DB was also an expert at dishing out the love and kisses for everyone.
I wanted to get this down on some format because often as time passes on, so do some of our memories, of course we have the pictures but sometimes not the words that described those picture and events.
Today, we had to put our beloved Darby to sleep, in the last month he had developed a limp which got worse by the week. It was confirmed that he had developed bone cancer and in a large dog..well that's not so good. Since he was so large, amputation was not an option. When a dog has bone cancer chances are it will develop quickly to the lungs also.
My wife and I are saddened by losing our BEST FRIEND, however we look back at the 9 1/2 years (which is a long time for a big dog) and we remember how much love and enjoyment he gave us.
Our little Sadie (a rescues we got about 12 months ago) is not sure what to do and she knows something is amiss. I also wanted to remember that my wife gave Darby his name and at the time the best name I was able to come up with was snot, we were much better off with Darby!
We miss you Darby!
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