Amos – Part 2: Walks, Sunbeams, and a Big Personality

Part 2 of 3 in the series: The Dogs Who Owned Our House: Dana and Amos

We spent a lot of time at the Jersey Shore, and since we didn’t have a yard down there, Amos had to be walked on a leash three to four times a day.

He loved those walks.

They ended up being a great bonding experience for both of us. Amos was still reactive to other dogs, which meant I had to keep my head on a swivel the entire time. I learned to spot potential trouble before he did.

If I saw another dog approaching, I would generally try to evade and avoid them. Other times I’d have him sit and stay calm while we kept our distance. That worked most of the time, though we did have a few lunging incidents that tested both my nerves and my arm strength.

I always had good control over him and thankfully, nobody ever got hurt.

Amos also came with something called a Holti. It’s a leash attachment that fits around a dog’s nose and neck—kind of like a bridle on a horse. The leash connects to it so you can guide their head and direction more easily.

A lot of people thought it was a muzzle, which made them nervous. But it’s not restrictive at all. Amos could open his mouth, lick, pant—whatever he wanted. It just helped me steer him a bit better.

More than once, other dog walkers saw us coming and crossed the street.

Honestly, that worked for me.

We eventually started timing our walks during quieter hours to avoid encounters altogether.

One of Amos’s favorite places down the shore was our little balcony. He could sit out there for hours, basking in the sun and watching the world go by.

Of course, if another dog walked past, the pterodactyl would come out.

Even at home, if there was the slightest sliver of sunlight coming through a window, Amos would find it and lie there until it disappeared.

He loved his sunbeams. It didn’t matter where they showed up—in the living room, in the family room, halfway across the hallway—if there was a patch of sunlight in the house, Amos considered it his.

For a dog who once lived on the streets, I always liked to think he was just making up for lost sun.

As he got older, we started noticing some health issues. One day he suddenly seemed to lose control of his back legs. We thought it might be something like the vestibular issue Dana once had, but the symptoms were a bit different.

After a couple of episodes, we took him to the vet.

Turns out Amos had a heart murmur and cardiomyopathy. A veterinary cardiologist confirmed the diagnosis and put him on heart medication.

For about three years we managed it that way, until one visit when the doctor told us his heart had improved enough that he no longer needed the medication.

Unfortunately, about three years later the symptoms returned. This time he had a grade-three murmur and went back on the meds. Amos didn’t mind at all—taking pills meant he got liverwurst or bologna and treats at least twice a day.

As he aged, he developed the typical pitbull collection of skin tags and fatty cysts. None of them were dangerous, and the vet preferred to leave them alone unless they started causing problems.

After ten years with us, Amos needed a little more attention than he used to, but he was still fairly independent.

Then one night he chased a rabbit in the yard and came back a little lame.

Amos was incredibly stoic about pain. He rarely complained. But we noticed he was moving differently and struggling with stairs. At first, we chalked it up to age and sore hips. However, he didn’t seem to care too much and just went about his business as usual.

A few weeks later we came home from the shore, and he sprinted after another rabbit. When he came back, something was clearly wrong. He could barely walk and was favoring his left hind leg.

A vet visit confirmed he had ruptured his CCL—the canine equivalent of an ACL. I think the first episode of him walking strange after chasing that rabbit could have been caused by a slight tear or sprain of that CCL, but the second chase finished the job. We also found out that this was a common ailment for older pitbulls.

Our vet recommended a surgeon who spent a lot of time examining Amos and walking us through options. Because Amos was already thirteen and had a heart condition, surgery wasn’t the best path.

Instead, he suggested a company called My Pet’s Brace that creates custom leg braces for dogs.

So, one day we took a ride to Toms River, New Jersey—about an hour and fifteen minutes away. They made a cast of Amos’s leg, sent it to their manufacturing facility, and a few weeks later the brace arrived. Wearing the brace for nine months would allow scar tissue to form in his knee so the joint would be more stable.

Amos didn’t love it.

But Amos was also incredibly adaptable, and like he did with most things in his life, he adjusted.

We slowly built up the amount of time he wore it each day. Eventually he could go about nine hours with it on and move around pretty well.

For a thirteen-year-old dog with a bum knee and a heart that had already given us a scare or two, he was still doing what Amos always did:

Figuring things out and carrying on.

But as Amos entered his later years, new challenges began to appear—ones that would eventually lead us to the hardest decision any dog owner ever has to make.

Next in the series: Amos – Part 3: The Hardest Goodbye