My family's dog died last week.

Augie was 17 years old, and he'd been our family dog for 15 years, from the time he was about 2.

I was about 11 years old, and my brother was 8 or 9 when we adopted him from the Kanawha/Charleston Animal Shelter.

He came with the name Augie, and my mother had to campaign hard to let him keep his name.

My brother, the instigator of the dog-getting, had been very excited about the prospect of naming the new pet.

But Augie wasn't in our house very long before we came to see that we could no more change his name than we could change his personality.

And he had a lot of personality.

Augie was the kind of dog people remembered. He always made an impression.

Every time we took him to the vet, she greeted him by name when he came through the door. Even when we took other pets, she asked about Augie.

Anyone who came to our house remembered him, too.

Though I've long since graduated from college, my old friends from elementary, junior high and high school all remember Augie.

Augie had big, brown, soulful eyes.

As he got older he developed cataracts, which lead to a condition like glaucoma. He couldn't see very well.

But even then, he'd look up at you meaningfully, and you couldn't not pet him.

He was a mutt - what the shelter called a Cocker mix. We think he might have had something like a retriever in him because he had big bones. He was short, but stocky.

His coat was long, golden with black streaks. When he was younger we took him to a groomer once a year or so, and he'd come back with his paws trimmed up, a bandana around his neck and a bounce in his step.

As a young and middle-aged dog, he had more energy than he could work off. He'd run laps inside the house, from the kitchen through the hall and the dining room and back to the kitchen.

If he was outside playing in the neighborhood and we called him, he'd come bounding up to us so fast he'd have to run several small circles around our legs before he could stop.

His one vice was trash. Even when he was older, we had to keep him on a tight leash on trash days.

He did a lot of traveling. He visited me at college in Morgantown and my brother at college in Lexington, Va.

He liked car rides, but mostly he was just happy to be wherever we were.

He loved walks. His leash was never really necessary because he wouldn't leave our sides, but he liked to use it. We speculate he thought he was walking us.

He knew his route around the neighborhood with a few optional side trips. You didn't have to ask him where he wanted to go; he'd lead you.

One of our neighbors kept treats for him even though she didn't have dogs of her own. She was his favorite neighbor, and he never failed to stop at her house.

He loved walks so much that even when he couldn't walk, he'd go through the motions.

See, in his last years he suffered from painful arthritis that sometimes made him lose control of his hind legs.

He'd also have episodes of something the vet called "old dog syndrome," which is a kind of palsy that made his brain lose control of his legs.

When that happened, he'd get dizzy and walk sideways. It was scary, but it usually passed.

But through all that, he'd get excited about a walk. He'd look up with a glint in his eye and start to prance around. He'd get outside and walk a few hundred feet before giving up and returning home.

This winter was hard because of all the ice and snow. He didn't get to walk much, but the day before he died he walked all the way around our circle with my mom for the first time in weeks.

The vet said later that maybe he overdid it that day.

I think that was a great way to go out.

The most important thing about Augie, though, is that we almost didn't get him.

He'd been dropped off at the shelter by a couple that had divorced, and neither wanted Augie.

We still can't understand why anyone wouldn't want Augie.

He had been at the shelter so long that he should have been euthanized.

But Charleston City Council member and animal lover Tim Halloran met Augie on a visit to the shelter, and Augie made such an impression that Halloran made a donation to get him a stay of execution.

And shortly thereafter, we got him.

So when Putnam County Animal Relief Fund Chairman Jeff Barnes told me in our interview that one of the saddest things about the current Putnam County Animal Relief Center is that they can't keep animals long enough to give them a decent chance at adoption, I immediately thought of Augie.

The day we adopted Augie, we would have left the shelter with a dog no matter what.

But I'm so grateful that someone gave Augie enough time for us to find him.

It was a gift my family will never forget.