Mackworth came in to our lives on March 14th, 2021. While it was a bittersweet moment for his previous family, Carolynn and I could not have been happier. His look coming home was one of “what is going on?”, but he managed to shrug it off and sleep during the 5 hour trip back to Southport.

Once we got back, it did not take him long to make himself at home. We helped a little by building stairs up to our bed to help him:

In order to get him use to his new happening life, we made him go on the very first Southport St Patrick’s Day Parade (really just a walk/bike/run):

Mack was always a good sport when it came to having him do things, and he would allow Carolynn to dress him up for the holidays, and he was also (usually) patient enough for some photo ops:

We soon discovered that Mack liked to nap. He loved pillows. He loved blankets.

Mack enjoyed going places with us, and on several occasions he would even block the door and not let us leave without him. He went to our favorite hangout on the waterfront, to parades, on the golf cart just to go site seeing, and to concerts in the park (he was always a hit!). Everyone always told us tales of their labs and how cute they were, previous and current. We believe Mack was way cuter, but we are obviously biased.

To get Mack around, we added a platform and safety harness to the golf cart so he couldn’t fall off, and we bought him a bicycle that, while originally made for carrying kids, was modified to carry him with a safety harness.

Mack loves stuffed animals. They were always around, and he loved getting new ones.

Mack, like most labs, loved to eat. He loved his pup cups, too. Vanilla ice cream and maybe a dog treat.

We celebrated his birthdays with special cookies from the local pet store.

Mack met Santa, got to sit on a pumpkin, and can you imagine someone else you would rather kiss under the mistletoe?

Just wanted to throw a few more up here spread over the last almost two years.

That leads us up to Tuesday, February 7th. Carolynn and Mack went to visit her parents over the preceding weekend, and came back on Saturday. Beginning on Monday, Mack was very lethargic, and only ate in the morning. He refused to eat Monday night, and was having trouble standing, so we took him to the vet on Tuesday. Things did not go well. They found a 7 cm by 9 cm mass on his liver. The tumor was inoperable. In addition, we also now believe he suffered from a disease called Masticatory Muscle Myositis (MMM). This disease causes his immune system to attack his own muscles. It explains why he could not walk and could not eat, plus some other symptoms we thought were just allergies.

We brought Mackworth back home and made him comfortable. He reacted well to the medicine, and he was able to walk a little and enjoyed some more golf cart trips, ribeye steak, pup cups, and of course some more snuggle time.

Unfortunately, the end was always still going to be the same, and it would come too soon.

We said our final goodbye to Mack on March 1st. Thankfully, he hung around long enough to allow Carolynn to race home from work and say goodbye and tell him that she loved him. He then looked at me, looked back at her, put his head down on his bed, and was gone.

He is buried in our backyard, facing the house, with his favorite monkey tucked under his leg so he is holding it, and his favorite bear next to him.

We are very thankful to have gotten the chance to have loved Mackworth for almost two years, as he had been well loved by all of those in his life before that.

Mackworth, our wonderful companion, we love you more than anything and will miss you dearly.