Our Most Favorite Memory

Cayman Buchanan

August 22, 2004-March 2, 2010

Our first baby and beloved family dog, Cayman, died on March 2, 2010 due to chronic kidney failure. He is missed so deeply and had too short of a life, but has left eternal prints on our hearts and will always be remembered by his family. We love him so much.

Cayman's Story: We bought Cayman from a couple who bred English Bulldogs in American Fork, Utah. He came from a Champion blood line and his dad was a Champion show dog. Jason had the love for bulldogs and I was hoping for a smaller, neater dog to have at home, but after Jason took me to see the litter I fell in LOVE! Cayman was the first and last one I picked up to hold. We took him home that night and named him Cayman after the Grand Cayman Islands which was our favorite port we stopped at on our honeymoon cruise!

He cried the first night we brought him home all night long. We had him in a box next to my bed, but he didn't like that. We then tried to kennel him, and that was aweful. We knew he was going to be stubborn from there on out! So, he won the battles and got his own gated off section of our basement with a bed and toys and his food and water while Jason and I were at school and work. I LOVED coming home from school to see Cayman running up to me down in the basement stumbling on his BIG feet that made him trip all the time. He was the cutest little puppy!

After a year in Utah, Cayman and I made the 23 hour drive together to Houston, TX, following Jason in the U-Haul, where we were moving too. He sat on his bed in the passenger seat and slept and snored the whole way! I'll never forget Cayman's rude awakening to the Texas fire ants after not even being at my parents house for 15 minutes. He got out of the car to use the bathroom and just started rolling all over the place and going crazy. I realized he stepped in an ant pile and was covered in ants. I got the hose and washed them all off and for a week after Cayman itched and scratched at all the many bumps that covered his poor body.

In our new home, Cayman had his very own room, a twin bed and pictures hanging up of bulldogs that I had cut out of an old calendar! He was OUR baby and was spoiled rotten. I got pregnant with Kyler a year after moving into our new home and was put on bedrest at 29 weeks due to preterm labor. Cayman was my best friend!! He laid by me feet and sometimes on top of my feet to keep them warm the whole time! He barked at anyone that came to the door to scare them off and watched all my daytime shows with me! We even took naps together during this extremely boring time in my pregnancy:) We were buddies!!

Eventually, Kyler was soon to arrive and Cayman's bedroom was now becoming the baby's room so he had to get the boot to the laundry room:( He of course hated that, so we resulted in the office where the doors were glass and he could see out! Cayman was so cute when we brought Kyler home from the hospital and was so concerned when he was crying in my arms. He would jump up to try and figure out what it was. He was a good big brother from the start!

After much warming up, and even after Camden's birth, Cayman let the boys do anything they wanted to him. He was a trooper and the boys loved him! Camden would just stare at him and was so intrigued with Cayman. When I wasn't paying full attention to the boys playing outisde or in the front room, Cayman would come where I was and stand by me till I would go out with them so he knew they were taken care of. He was also so conerned about the boys swinging on their swings or sliding down the slide and would stand right at the end to make sure they made it down safe.

Cayman's favorite thing to do was go to the lake house in the summer with us. He was able to go for 4 years and had a blast every time! The pictures above are actually pictures that my dad took of him in 2008 when we took all our family pictures! He loved riding the golf cart, drinking the lake water down by the beach front, and laying on the deck watching the birds and the deer all around the yard. We have so many great memories of Cayman at the lake house!

Cayman started to show signs of deterioration around Christmas of 2009. He started to not eat as well and we wondered how he would do when we had to leave him for our Christmas trip to Utah. He wasn't liking the dog food we had him on, so we switched him back to Eukanuba which is what he had been on for years and he ate that food for about a good 2 weeks. He then just started to stop eating that and was getting skinny. The vet told us to try wet canned food and Cayman ate that for a good week then stopped eating that and continued to get skinny. The vet told us to try boiling chicken and feeding him that and white rice. Cayman ate that for a couple weeks then didn't want that either. By this time we were getting really concerned and the day after Camden's 1st birthday, we took Cayman to the vet to find out the devistating news- he had kidney failure (weighed in at 35 lbs after having reached a healthy weight of 55 lbs normally). The vet said that his blood count levels were so far off the charts that he was surprised that he was sitting there alive and seemed to think that it was a hereditery thing and was bound to happen, but it's hard to know. When Jason asked the vet what time we had left with him, thinking in his mind it was months, the vet said that he doesn't even give him 4 weeks because of the blood analysis. But we had higher hopes because Cayman was still perky and seemed to be full of energy and enjoying life, the only thing that seemed wrong was he just wasn't eating and getting skinny.

Our last great memories of Cayman were at Camden's party we had with friends and family that friday, 2 days after finding out the news. He was jumping up and biting at all the balloons that were shooting around the house, playing with all the kids that had come over, and even got a few bites of cake that Camden dropped onto the floor! He was in good spirits and had a great time at the party!

Cayman began to deteriorate quickly after that week. We were giving him an antibiotic and Pepcid AC to help his stomach settle his food he would eat and keep it down, but eventually he stopped eating all together. On the evening of Monday March 1, 2010, I laid out a blanket and slept on the floor holding Cayman's paw all night hearing him have trouble breathing and throwing up knowing that it was probably the last night I was going to get with him. I called the vet in the morning to tell him his symptoms and conferenced Jason in on the call so we could make some decisions. The vet told us that Cayman's quality of life is not very good now and that it was probably time to let him go. After describing how toxic his own body was to his health due to no kidney function, I just felt so selfish wanting to keep him around and not being able to let him go. Jason and I, through lots of tears, scheduled the appointment to put Cayman to sleep that afternoon.

Jason originally didn't want me to come to the hospital to put Cayman to sleep, but Cayman was something that we had together from the beginning and we were going to do it together till the end. After hearing his struggle to breath and stay alive for a whole night, it was extremely comforting to me to see Cayman peacefully drift off to sleep and see his breathing become calm and regular after such a strong fight to stick around with his family. We hugged him and held onto him throguh the whole thing and told him that he will always and forever be remembered by us.

The hardest thing we have had to do was say goodbye to Cayman and spend the next couple weeks adjusting to him not being around. The house actually felt empty, which seemed impossible with two toddlers running around and keeping me super busy, but it was the evenings when we would spend our time with Cayman and the business trips Jason would take where he kept me company and safe. It was such a surreal thing to go through because it all happened so quickly and suddenly, but we know we will see his squishy, wrinkled face again!

We love you and miss you so much Cayman!