My big dog, Buddy, died last nite....Buddy was a Black lab, Great Dane and Mastif mix.....160lb's and tall as me when he stood on his hind legs, If one could "pick out" a dogs attittute and the way he acts, then Buddy would be the "mold"......a dog that litterally wouldnt bite his own fleas.....a short history on Buddy here, about 6 years ago when my boy was 2 i was in the kitchen listening to jr. playing in his room on the baby monitor.....he was talking to what i thought was his "imaginary friend" and laughing and i heard him ask his "friend" if he was comming to his birthday party next week.....cute i thought.....i went upstairs to his room and opened the door and to my horror, in his bed was a GIANT DOG that i had never seen before IN MY LIFE!!!.....thats who he was "talking" to the whole time!!......(apparantly, he just let this dog in the house and took him upstairs, we had never seen him before and didnt know who's he was).......Freaked me out to say the least but it was soon apparant that this dog was VERY gental and seemed to have a tie to my boy somehow. Upon inspection, the dog had a chain with a rabies tag but no name or phone #........(now here's a freaky part)......our boy kept calling him "Buddy" so we did too till we could find the owner and call...."his name Buddy" he kept saying.....called a few local vets with the rabies tag and found the owner's name and phone #, lived a couple miles beyond me up a hollow so i called....." hey, we've got you giant dog down here" ...he said " oh, you found Buddy?".....i said " What? his name is Buddy?".......well, we've never been able to figure that one out......the guy comes to get him and as he's leaving my boy says "Buddy, dont forget to come to my birthday party on saturday" (2 or 3 days away).......well , saturday gets here and all the kids are here playing and stuff and guess who opens the door and walks right in (freaking the hell out of some parants) ....you guessed it , Buddy!.......no idea how but i'll swear its true......he was the life of the party (dog is a compleate attention hound....wants petted all the time).......over the next few months, SEVERAL attempts were made to keep Buddy home but to no avail, he broke chains, drug cinder blocks, dug his way out and tore up a door.....they guy finally said "if you dont want him, i'll have to shoot him cause he just keeps coming back"......now i was FIRMLY against this GIANT dog living here but the wife and the boy overode me and ever since, Buddy lived here.....about 2 years ago , Buddy dissappeared chasing a dog in heat and was gone for about a month, we had givin up looking but he finally came back although 30lb's lighter.....about 6 months ago he did the same thing but never really seamed to recover or put his weight back on and just wasent right, wife took him to the vet last week and he said all the running was really hard on a dog that big and his heart wasnt pumping off all the fluid like it should, gave him some med's and said he should be ok.......last night after i let him out to pee, when he came back in he looked at me kinda funny then he fell over like somebody shot him.....(he's had a few seizure's before and i thought this was one).....as i held him down and petted him he let out the most awful howl i've ever heard, he whimperd a few times and i saw he wasnt breathing anymore........couldnt beleave it.....and now i gotta live with that forever i guess......couldnt really bury a dog that big so we had him creamated and i'll bury the ashes.....anyway, just wanted to rant it out a little........RIP Buddy, my good friend.....