Beau was my family’s dog. We loved him very much. He had to be put to sleep on June 15, 2023. Beau struggled badly with cancer the last month of his life. He was put rest at home with Sarah, My Daughters and I. He will be dearly missed.

My family got Beau May 24, 2015. It was a Sunday and we got him from the Milan animal shelter. Maddie was 10, Claire was 7 and Charlotte was 5. The girls had wanted a dog for a while. Techinically Beau was our second dog. We had gotten a small beagle/jack russle mix we named Conner from another shelter a couple of months before but it had bit Charlotte and I was worried it was going to kill Rosie so we ended up returning the dog to the shelter after just a couple weeks. Because of this bad experience Char was pretty afraid of getting a dog.

Even after this bad experience Sarah, Maddie and Claire still really wanted a dog. I was hesitent to get a dog as I was worried of the chore of caring for it and how it would interact with Rosie our cat. So I was apprehensive. On the Friday before we got Beau Sarah, Maddie and Claire visited the Milan shelter and found poor Beau anxiously waiting in his pen. He had been there only a couple of days. Immediately the girls liked him and Sarah had all of us come down on Sunday to see him.

I remember the shelter staff lead us back to a visiting room and brought Beau back to us. Char was scared and sat on Sarah’s lap and Maddie and Claire waited excitedly. When Beau came in he was a little spazzy and I think he let out some of his big barks. This scared Charlotte and she started crying on Sarah’s lap. Maddie and Claire started crying because they were worried we wouldn’t take him home. Sarah frantically asked me what I thought as she badly wanted a dog but was afraid of repeating the mistake we had made with Conner. I remember looking at Beau. He was a very pretty springer spanial and his temperment seemed good. He was the right size about 45lbs, big enough to feel “dog like” but not too big for our small house and back yard. I thought about it for a minute and figured if we can’t make this dog work we can’t make any dog work so I recommended we take Beau home that day.

We walked Beau out of the shelter and he peed in fear when they wanded his Chip to validate the information on it. Despite his big bark he was always a very timid boy. We loaded him in the gold Chevy Uplander minivan to took him to Mike and Micheals for memorial day. The girls were very excited and it was a very nice day outside and Beau ran around the yard happily. It was a good first day.

Beau was a very high energy dog and very smart. We enrolled him in dog training school and we learned how to train him. He was always good at fetch. Maddie and Claire taught Beau to jump through a hoop in the back yard and go down the slide. I taught him how to find things. I would take something and tell him to sit and then hold it in front of his nose so he knew what to look for. Then I would tell him to stay and hide it in another room. I’d return and tell him to “find it” and he’d run off wagging his tail and searching frantically for what I had hidden. Then he’d find it and bring it to me for his treat.

Beau could run. Beau and I would go for runs of more then 7 miles together. He was strong and could keep up for a long time. Later I bought Beau a harness and he would pull me on a scooter while the kids road their bikes. I think he really enjoyed this because he felt like we were all a pack going looking for things.

He was a classic springer. He loved running ahead of you while you walked and looking for things to spring. If you set off for walk with him off leash he’d dart out about 30 yards head of you and be poking his nose into things trying to spring a bird or whatever. He wasn’t gun shy at all either. He would have made a great hunting dog.

Beau loved to have a ball. One time when the wet spring on the golf course flooded we took Beau back there to play and he would chase his ball into the small pond that formed. Eventually he lost the ball and he had to return home. Later in the day when we returned to the spring Beau immediately went looking for the ball again. He after about 10 min of searching he found it! It was neat to see him remember what he was looking for later in the day.

Beau had a great time playing fetch in the back yard of our old house. I’d throw the ball for him and he would fetch it. We’d play a chase game in the back yard where he would run from me with his toy. He was lot like a little kid. The old house yard was small and enclosed by a chain link fence and that kept Beau close enough to me that it still felt like a chase and he’d have to dodge me and the kids to keep his toy. It was pretty fun. When we moved to the new bigger house the game didn’t work though becasue the yard was too big and he’d easily run away from us.

Beau’s favorite food to steal was pizza and hot dogs. We didnt’ really give Beau many table scraps because we wanted him to stay lean and healthy. But if you didn’t watch out Beau was happy to swipe a few slices of Pizza or a hot dog. One time we had some friends over and I grilled hot dogs for the kids. They didn’t eat many and I left about 6 on the counter. Later when I was cleaning up there was only one or two… Beau had gotten them :D