I’m not sure if the kids really get it. Benjamin says “Hercules is staying at the doctor’s.” We got a paw print impression from the vet as a keepsake. He will be missed!<\/p>\n
Ode to Hercules<\/p>\n
Hercules, you were the best dog that ever was.
\nFrom the moment we met you, we knew you were the dog for us.
\nCalm and loving. Fun but well mannered.
\nYou had more grace and patience built into you than most people ever acheive
\nProtecting, adoring, you were a good companion to us and our kids,
\nand attentive to every sound that approached our house.
\nFierce guardian, first with your sub vocal gruff, then your impressive bark.<\/p>\n
You were the perfect dog, its hard to imagine any other to compare.
\nHandsome and noble, muscular and shining.
\nYou were only limited by the time and attention we gave you.
\nYou learned so quickly the tricks we taught you, yet we did not challenge you to learn more.
\nYou were hungry for every moment of affection we gave you, but you never begged.
\nYou made do with whatever circumstances were given to you, and took them with a smile.<\/p>\n
I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with you hercules.
\nI cherished our time on runs and walks, they were as much for me as they were for you.
\nI’m sorry we didn’t do more of the things you wanted to do,
\nthough it would have helped if you would have brought the ball back to me instead of wanting to eat it.<\/p>\n
Laser lights, chasing Gandalf, bolting through the doggie door in the middle of the night to chase away sounds that we could not hear.
\nThese were your favorite things.
\nAnd they were our favorite things too.<\/p>\n
Thanks for all the road-trips you made with us.
\nThanks for taking good care of our kids.
\nThanks for being the best dog ever.<\/p>\n
Love you buddy,
\nNate<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hercules has been sick off and on this year since Feb. Once to the point we were going to ‘leave him in Tx’ in March. This last week, he got bad again and when we took him to the vet yesterday she agreed that it was time. So we say farewell to a great dog….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,105],"tags":[406,404,35,403,405],"class_list":["post-3147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-photo","tag-companion","tag-death","tag-grief","tag-hercules","tag-pet","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-105-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-OL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3296,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/shadowbox","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":0},"title":"Shadowbox","author":"Becca","date":"January 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Not the best photo, but here's our memorial to Hercules. They made the little paw print for us at the vet's office, his collar, and a card from the vet. I think I may add a photo to it sometime, but am too lazy to reopen it. Need to figure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/21-hercules-shadowbox.jpg?fit=1111%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/21-hercules-shadowbox.jpg?fit=1111%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/21-hercules-shadowbox.jpg?fit=1111%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/21-hercules-shadowbox.jpg?fit=1111%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/21-hercules-shadowbox.jpg?fit=1111%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9122,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/stinker-2","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":1},"title":"Stinker","author":"Becca","date":"May 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When Ben is stinky, he blames it on Hercules. hehehe","rel":"","context":"In "Benjamin"","block_context":{"text":"Benjamin","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/kids\/benjamin-kids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8824,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/excuse","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":2},"title":"Excuse","author":"Becca","date":"April 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, so Ben often blames Hercules for the stinkies (and he often is the culprit), but this is a new one. \"Hercules pooped in my pants!\" - B","rel":"","context":"In "Benjamin"","block_context":{"text":"Benjamin","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/kids\/benjamin-kids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10028,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/food-vacuum","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":3},"title":"Food Vacuum","author":"Becca","date":"October 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There has definitely been a rise in the amount of food under our table since Herc has been gone. I have had the vacuum out more times in one week than ever before. ;)","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3166,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/introducing","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":4},"title":"Introducing . . .","author":"Becca","date":"October 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The newest member of the AZ Moehring household, Chewbacca . . . but we'll call him Chewy for short! The kids have been asking for a bunny since we read the Curious George book where George gets to play with and then gets awarded with a bunny, but the answer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Kids"","block_context":{"text":"Kids","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/kids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10-chewy.jpg?fit=1200%2C910&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10-chewy.jpg?fit=1200%2C910&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10-chewy.jpg?fit=1200%2C910&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10-chewy.jpg?fit=1200%2C910&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/10-chewy.jpg?fit=1200%2C910&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9292,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2010\/06\/bedtime","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":5},"title":"Bedtime and Truth","author":"Becca","date":"June 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Hannah sang the bedtime songs with me tonight, it was really cute. :) Nanny \"Did you feed that to Hercules?\" Hannah \"No.\" Nanny \"You promise?\" Hannah \"No.\" Had to turn around because I was about to laugh.","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/hahaha.jpg?fit=820%2C267&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/hahaha.jpg?fit=820%2C267&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/hahaha.jpg?fit=820%2C267&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/hahaha.jpg?fit=820%2C267&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/04.jpg?fit=972%2C1000&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3147"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27122,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147\/revisions\/27122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/zp\/albums\/5.pets\/2013\/10%2004%2013\/04.JPG?ssl=1\")
Hercules has been sick off and on this year since Feb. Once to the point we were going to ‘leave him in Tx’ in March. This last week, he got bad again and when we took him to the vet yesterday she agreed that it was time. So we say farewell to a great dog.<\/p>\n