On July 3, 2011 we brought home the most perfect puppy. Wilson was 3, Bailey was 21 months, and Gus would arrive exactly 38 weeks later. We had just moved into the first house we bought together and I had just started my radiology residency. We were so happy and we brought this perfect dog into our loving, crazy, young family.

I couldn't love these videos of him and Bailey more. You can see how gentle he was even then. He's a 10-week old puppy and is chasing her. But when he gets to her, he doesn't jump or knock her down or scare her. He stops and waits for her to pet him.

Koda has always been the most perfect dog imaginable for us. He would rather die than upset one of us. A single stern word or look sends him begging for forgiveness. When he was a puppy, Joey once scolded him for taking food from the kitchen and he wouldn't even walk into the kitchen for months afterwards. Literally all he wants in life is to make us happy.

He is the most loyal creature I can imagine. He's never needed a leash, because why would he ever run away from what he loves most? Up until about a month ago when he stopped being able to make it up the stairs, he would follow every step I took in our house. Although I would try to reassure him that I would be right back and he didn't have to get up to follow me to the bathroom, he insisted. When we go hiking, he runs about 100 feet ahead or to the side to make sure the coast is clear and then runs back to us over and over again.

He has protected us and made us feel so safe, but he rarely barks. If there's someone outside the house or he hears something that we don't, he makes this little noise in his throat to warn us without waking anyone but me. When Joey lived in Lexington and I was still in St. Louis with the kids, he kept us safe. And I have no doubt that he has deterred crime. No raccoon trying to eat our chickens is safe in our backyard because he will get vicious if he has to.

He loves affection and attention but he knows when to ask for them and when to lay peacefully by your feet. He's the perfect companion.

Through all the stages we've been through as a family since 2011, he's been with us, he's been a part of us. As we've grown, moved, celebrated, grieved the loss of loved ones, he's been a part of our family. Always there. Always steady. Always ready to do anything he can for any one of us.

His health has rapidly declined over the last 3 months and tomorrow we are going to say goodbye. It's hard to put into words just how hard that feels. We will be losing the best companion, but somehow it feels like more than that too. It feels like the end of an era. Gus will be 13 in two months and it feels like losing Koda is part of us all growing up and moving to the next stage. There will never be another dog like him for us. He was just what we needed when we needed him. And all those magical memories of the last 13.5 years are softened with the warm light of his love.

As I reflect on all the losses we have endured over the last three years, I keep coming back to following lines from the poem "Lucky enough" by Zach Bryan.

"If I'm lucky enough I'll understand losing someone close....

If I'm lucky enough, I will get through hard things

And they will make me gentle to the ways of the world."