Gone But Not Forgotten Pt. 2

Coco was my second dog, the first one still in my memory. We got him when I was 6 or 7 years old. I still remember him cuddled up in the back seat with me. His fur was a dark chocolate brown at that time. He always used to sleep in my bed. It was no question I was one of his favourite people. We had Coco for a long time and I have many great memories of him. Here's a few that stand out:

The Stolen Cookie

This story happened when I was really young so my memory is kind of blurry. But my mom had just met my stepdad at the time, he came over with his two sons. We had cookies and were playing in the basement. There was a little hole and one of my stepbrothers fell in the hole than Coco stole his cookie.

Playing Fetch

As Coco got old he became really lazy and stubborn. He would still go for walks and run around a bunch, but he mostly just laid around the house. The one thing he always had energy for was fetch. He had a little rubber toy that he loved, it was a green ball with two little legs (not sure how to explain it but it was a weird shape). I would throw it down the hallway and he'd run and get it. I never taught him how to bring it back so I had to chase him up onto the couch to get it back. I used to play it with him all the time, it was our little game.

The Big Dogs

When we were living in town I took him for a walk down the side road close to our house. The neighbours across the road from us had a field behind there house and their dogs would run around the field. One day I took Coco for a walk and the two dogs from the neighbours house ran up to Coco when they saw him. They did what dogs do and started sniffing his butt and they were surrounding him. Coco (a chocolate toy poodle, not a big dog) was petrified, he stood there looking at me not moving an inch. The two dogs were three times the size of poor Coco. So I had to go pick Coco up and carry him the rest of the way home. It was the funniest story I remember with him.

Best Buds

I was Coco's best friend since I was a little boy and he was a little pup. I was a shy, skinny kid and Coco was the little runt of his pack. If I called his name at the same time as someone else, he would walk over to me before the other person. Sometimes he would be let outside without a leash (when we lived in the country) and he would burn his energy by running around in circles really fast. The only one who could stop him was me, 9 year old me would lye down on the ground and the little goofball would run up to lick my face. Whenever I took Coco for a walk we would always have a little race at the end, when I was a kid he would always win but I started getting faster and he got slower as the years went on. I remember teaching him how to shake a paw before giving him a treat, eventually he caught on and when I grabbed the treat he would lift his little paw up.

Coco will forever remain in my heart as the dog that made me fall in love with dogs.

R.I.P. Coco