A yellow school bus skidded around a switchback mountain road in Colorado, giving its passengers a feel for the white-water ride awaiting them in the canyon below.

A river guide stood in the front of the bus, telling its sunscreen-smelling passengers about his yellow Labrador retriever. He worried the dog was getting old.

The guide’s plan for his dog’s old age was to avoid it: He timed him in the 40-yard dash every year, and if the dog slowed, he’d shoot him. (The rafting disclaimer included nothing about placing trust in a psychotic guide.)

I never timed my black lab, Sydney.

Before she learned to fetch, I’d get her to chase me. Eventually she grew impatient with my slow legs and nipped through the cuffs of my jeans.

Then she’d chase a ball as far as I could throw it. She’d chase a stick even if it meant she had to crash through a frozen creek.

She never once chased my daughter. She never barked or bit, and she obliged the new child’s tail-pulling, back-riding and affection-stealing.

She’d make me lift her into the tub for a bath. But damned if she wouldn’t jump out on her own if I looked away.

As a kid we only had a dog for a day.

We named him Rastro, like the Jetsons’ dog. We thought that would make my dad happy — he hated dogs but liked the Jetsons. My dad took him back to the pound that afternoon.

My dad took the blame. It’s funny how you remember things as a kid, and I remember Rastro as a happy young dog. Years later my parents told me he was old, and he suffered from incontinence. He had pooped in their bedroom, and that was the end of him.

All is forgiven.

Sydney was only 8, just a couple weeks shy of 9. I bought her for my girlfriend just before the Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

I didn’t really want a puppy, but my girlfriend promised to walk her, bathe her and scoop her poop. I should’ve gotten that in writing. But I fell in love with the dog, and I married my girlfriend.

All is forgiven.

Last Wednesday I fed Sydney and let her outside in the yard. Like always, she barked to be let back inside.

But I found her splayed in the yard, paralyzed in both back legs. The vet said she had an embolism and recovery was 50/50. They kept her for two days, and I brought her home Friday afternoon.

She was clearly spent. The vet started crying. I almost turned around in the parking lot to take Sydney back to put her out of her misery.

We figured we owed her the chance to come home. Maybe she’d cheer up at home. Maybe she’d give us some hope for recovery.

After a long, hard night and a morning of tears, we decided to put her to sleep. I laid down next to her. I told her that if this was it, then I loved her, I’d miss her, and I was sorry. I got dressed to take her. I put on my shoes.

I was brushing my teeth when she died.

I think she suffered to convince us she had no chance of recovery. And then I think she died on her own so we wouldn’t have to live with the doubt and guilt of euthanasia.

I hope all is forgiven.

I’m taking a canoe trip this weekend in the Ozarks, and I’ll place some of Sydney’s ashes in the river. You can’t measure life with a stopwatch. I hope she floats away slowly.

Joe Blumberg covers Buchanan County government and courts for the News-Press. He joined the News-Press in 2003 after graduating from the University of Missouri.