Very difficult today for my wife & i as i had to put him away. He was sufering from bad hips & could only go up a step or two but other than that was a real joy to be around. He would have been 12 the end of this month & we had him since he was about 6 mo's old, he did not show any other problems as sat he was just fine, but sunday i noticed he did not even want to go outside to do his business & had very little appetite & just layed around with out getting up,matter of fact i had to help him up to get him to take a few steps so after 3 days of this i literally carried him into the vet[ he weighed 82 lbs]. The vet did a blood test & his kidneys & lungs were only functioning about 50% & the vet said he had pneumonia & wanted to put him down then but the wife would not hear of it so the vet gave him a couple shots in hopes of helping his hip displacement & some anti biotics so we brought him home but after watching the poor dog just lay around & do nothing but drink water & then throw it up for 2.5 days i carried him into the vet. It only took a minute for him to be put away, we had him creamated. I just came home & got rid of everything that was around that was his and threw it all away. I don't know if i will get another dog as i am 71 yrs.old & am a caretaker for my wife who is only 56yrs old [spends 23 hrs a day in a recliner] as she can hardly walk, she suffers from adult scoliosis, diabetis,menopause & depression so i do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping & what not, so i have a lot on my plate but i do not want to be selfish as the wife has not ruled out getting another golden retriever & after how hard it is on both of us to lose our love that we both loved to death as it was very difficult & quite a few tears & sorrow filled our day, sorry toramble buthad to get it off my chest to someone,thanks for listening/reading. I am heading out to bob evans to get a carry out as i took today off from cooking but will be back here later tonight.