On July 25, 2008 while I was out of town on business in Los Angeles, my 13 year old black lab/dalmatian mix had to be put to sleep. She had been sick with tumors and cancer and during the few days that I went to LA she had started having seizures. My niece Nikki and my friend Noel were at the house on that Friday evening and had to carry her in a blanket into the car and to the emergency vet clinic. Nikki and Noel left her there so that I could make the decision after seeing her when I returned to San Diego in the morning. When I called the clinic the technician informed me Sierra kept having seizures and she was getting worse. It wasn’t fair to make her suffer overnight just so I could get one last look at her or one last hug so I had to make the decision to put my dog to sleep over the phone. I never had a chance to say goodbye to her or give her one last hug.
I hadn’t been to Dog Beach in Ocean Beach or to the dog park in Balboa Park since the summer of ‘08 so I took some time yesterday and went. I walked along the beach and went to the end at low tide where Sierra and I used to play fetch with the tennis ball while she was still in good shape. When the tide rolls out the edge of the beach turns into a lake…perfect for labradors who love to swim and chase the ball in the water.

Dog park was always a different story for us…without the distraction of the water and the ball Sierra would just growl and be mean to every dog that came near her…all the while wagging her tail.

I miss Sierra and miss having a dog so much. I got her when she was just 6 weeks old, the runt of the litter.

I was nuts then, too, and sent out birth announcements for my new addition. (yes, I realize that I spelled dalmatian wrong) This was my sister’s dog Scooby…who I had to bring to the vet to have put down because my sister couldn’t deal with it.

I got her right before the holidays so my nieces were ectastic when I showed up with her on Christmas morning.

I started prepping her at an early age for the torture devices and props that would end up on her. Too bad they didn’t have the site Stuff on My Mutt back then! I get this from my brother Pete whose favorite game is to hook one paw into the collar and watch them hobble around on 3 legs.

Who doesn’t look amazing with a Slinky boa!?

Sierra was always in a good mood…

…when she had beer around. (She takes after her mother and is named after Sierra Nevada Pale Ale after all…)

She loved to teach young dogs how to live life.

I started with the fish eye pics way back in the late 90s!

This was her very first playmate, Vanity. We shared a yard with another house and when we moved in Sierra and Vanity became best buds…they ruled the place.

She, like her mother, did not take to SCUBA very well.

But she was a good sport when I dressed her up for her annual holiday photo every year.

Over the years we had many roommates: human, canine and feline. This was her first kitten friend, Fletcher.

Summer was the friend she had the longest…we lived with Summer and another English Mastiff named Titus for many years.


We also used to dogsit for a Jack Russell named Jax on ocassion. One time I had to shove my whole hand down Jax’s throat because she got a condom out of the trash and was choking on it. It was not a condom that I had used, so you can imagine the sounds coming out of my mouth as I ripped my roommate’s boyfriend’s condom out of her mouth. Good times. No, Jax, you are not dying on my watch thank you very much.

Petey lived with us for a little while too. Sierra had many boyfriends…Titus, Coby, Dexter, the list goes on.

She had a huge lump on her ass that had to be removed…

When she started to get real sick towards the end of 2007 I moved my niece Nikki to San Diego to be my dog nanny. Yes, I paid someone to be the dog nanny. I was traveling a lot for work and it was too difficult to move her to another person’s house for a week at a time.

Generally she was a good dog…

…except towards the end when she would just blatantly knock the trash over and eat whatever she wanted out of it.

And then she would just shit right next to the mess… like “Haha fuck you Mom, now look at the mess you gotta clean up!” That little bitch.

I took pictures of the mess every single time. Often I would blame the other dog in the house, but in the end I realized Sierra was the ring leader. Always.

I know for a fact that she is running around in dog heaven growling at everyone who crosses her path, eating tons of trash and running along the beach chasing the birds and fetching that tennis ball over and over and over until she can barely walk.

RIP Sierra 11/7/94 – 7/25/08