Myles Fox Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information

Myles the Rescue In the Spring of 2007 our niece, Rhonda, found a photo on the Internet of a precious little black Yorkie with white markings up for adoption. We understood that his mother had been rescued from a puppy mill and gave birth prematurely to 4 tiny puppies. Unfortunately, 3 did not survive but "Pork Chop" at 8 ounces survived. On June 3, 2007 we drove to a park in Cleveland to meet the foster family and fell in love with a little furry puppy which Ronda quickly renamed Myles. I had purchased a small dog toy, lined a cardboard box with a blanket and this was his bed for the trip home. Rhonda worked full-time in a factory out of town. She was planning to leave him at 7am and get home about 4pm! So Uncle Jim and I told her we would pick him up at her house and take care of him until she came home after work. He was actually so tiny, he needed help to climb the one small step from our outside patio into the screened-in patio! He loved playing with a ball and his toys. We bought a very small leash and that summer he spent a lot of time in our yard for exercise. He was so small at first that a lady stopped her car one day while we were in the yard and asked if I had a kitten on a leash! Rhonda has a convertible automobile and she bought a doggy car sear so Myles could ride in the front passenger seat. That summer Myles ate and he grew! Rhonda enrolled Myles in a puppy training program in mid-September. He was a star pupil! He was full of energy, very active and entertained us endlessly with his antics. We continued taking care of Myles through the end of the year. We had rented a home in Florida for January-March 2008. The only drawback to this was leaving Myles in Findlay! Rhonda was able to find a home day-care for Myles near where she worked We weren't in Florida too long and missing Myles terribly when we called Rhonda and invited her & Myles to come for a visit. Since he was all puppy and so active, she went to her veterinarian and got some tranquilizers so he would be calm for the plane ride. She decided to give him a tranquilizer the day before the trip to determine the effect on him. It did not calm him down at all, so on the day of the trip, she gave him 2. He was in a small cage which fit under the plane seat so him flight was pretty uneventful. We met them at the airport with a larger borrowed cage for his visit. He sat in the cage and his head was just like a "bobble head" doll due to his drugged state-very funny! On our return to Findlay, Rhonda had a 1st birthday party for Myles! She had our family and her neighbors. Myles sat in his puppy travel seat on a chair with a party hat and a birthday cake! We found out that day he did not like balloons as the noise when he popped them scared him. Later that year Rhonda gave us ownership of Myles; one of the greatest gifts we ever received! She soon purchased 2 Persian cats and later me Mike, the love of her live. Then they became parents of a baby boy and 14 months later a baby girl! For the next few years, Jim & I & Myles spent 3 winter months in Florida. Myles adapted well and loved to lay on a chaise lounge beside the pool! He barked at the long-legged, cackling, wading cranes (birds) whenever they walked through the yard. In Findlay, we have a wooded area behind our home with an abundance of squirrels. Myles could look out the sun room windows and he would bark at the squirrels as they ran up and down the trees. When outside, but always on a leash, Myles took chase after squirrels who ventured in our yard. My husband always teased him that he DID NOT want to catch one of those squirrels as he would be no match for them! The "peach pit" episode was probably one of the most memorable adventures with Myles. One summer day, Jim was peeling and pitting some fresh peaches when a pit flipped onto the floor. At our house, if anything hit the floor it was fair game for Myles. Often we would call out the word "TREAT" and get the forbidden object back in exchange for a small doggie treat. We were too late and Myles quickly swallowed the pit. We called our Veterinarian Office and they x-rayed him but this was a weekend and if he did not pass it quickly, he would likely require surgery early the following week! We went to visit my sister later that day and Jim was throwing a ball which Myles would quickly retrieve and return. Jim, my sister and I watch in wide eyed amazement when Myles coughed while retrieving he ball and out flew the peach pit. All three of us lunged to grab it buy Myles quickly gobbled it up, again!! At least we knew it was not in him intestinal tract so we fed him some hydrogen peroxide and he again coughed it up but, this time we got it before he ingested it for the 3rd time! Myles loved toys. He had lots of them but favored those which were green. He had a favorite frog and a turtle. After dinner, while we were loading the dishwasher and cleaning up, he would put a stuffed toy in him mouth and slowly walk about the kitchen island, around the sun-room and hearth area to get our attention and we would play "catch Myles" with him. Myles worst habit was barking. He always alerted us to an errant insect in the house or a low battery in a fire alarm in addition to pedestrians on the sidewalk outside the house! One day I read "to find Yorkie in the dictionary, look under "yappy" and I readily agreed! He made us laugh often. So many times, when we got his leash and called him to go outside he would pretend to not hear us. When we said "Myles, come here now" he wold turn his head around to look to the left behind him and to the right behind him as if to say "I'm looking for Myles"so, we would relent and walk over to put his leash on. Yes, he had us trained. Beginning in late summer 2019, and as he approached his 13th birthday, April 7, 2020, he slowed down. He no longer jumped up on the hassock to nap or watch TV with us. We had to lift him up but we though he had arthritis. He began barking and waking us up at 2, 3, or 4 o'clock in the morning because he needed urinate. Since he was a senior dog, he had two physicals a year but we were never concerned that he could be terminally ill. He woke us up about 2 o'clock in the morning February 29th and was vomiting which happened again and again. We called our veterinarian at 8 o'clock and took him in. They treated him as we thought he had eaten something he should not have. He was given a shot for nausea and we were told to just feed him rice, boiled chicken or hamburger. He didn't eat much of that but there were small piles of snow on the ground and he ate that and urinated frequently. By 4 o'clock Sunday morning he was vomiting again and also had diarrhea. For the second night we were steam cleaning carpet and at a loss as to what was happening to Myles. We stayed home from church and he stopped being sick though not eating food; just eating snow. Monday we were back to see our veterinarian who now diagnosed him with gastritis. She kept him overnight and gave him an IV to re-hydrate him and an antibiotic. We picked him up Tuesday afternoon and we had our old Myles back! He even at some rice and boiled chicken. Unfortunately, Wednesday he was refusing to eat. Then, he woke us up Thursday and was very sick again. We took him back to our Vet and she x-rayed him. When she came out, she showed us a shadowy x-ray and explained that he had a tumor on his liver and that it was cancer! It was a punch in the stomach that takes your breath away. She stated there was nothing that could be done for him. We had him euthanized at 2 o'clock on Thursday, March 5, 2020 and we will forever have a hole in our hearts that Myles had filled for almost 13 years.

Myles Fox

April 7, 2007 - May 5, 2020