R.I.P. Dash "The Dog" Calipari

John Calipari and family have a heavy heart tonight as they lay to rest a long time member of the family and friend. Their dog, a German Shepherd named "Dash" was put to sleep following a sudden illness. Here's what Calipari had to say about the untimely death...

"It’s a sad day for every one of us in the Calipari family.

It breaks my heart to report that our German Shepherd, Dash, also known as the Mean and Nimble One, has passed away. Like a dog or a cat is to most of you, he had become part of our family and we are sick to our stomachs to lose him.

I don’t want to get into the medical terms of what it was, but this all happened in the last 24 hours. He was sick last night and we didn’t know what it was so we took him to the hospital and they kept him overnight. At first they told us there would be a 70 percent chance he would survive, but when I saw him this morning and he wasn’t doing any better, I had a bad feeling of where this was headed. At 9 years old and at his size, the vet said it’s like he’s 80 years old.

Fearing it may be the last time we would see him, we stopped in to see him before practice this evening. Unfortunately when we got there our fears became a reality; we were told we had to put him to sleep.

Dash was such a great dog and companion. He was loving, loyal and protective — everything you could want in a dog.

He was like a security blanket for Ellen and Brad. He was a German Shepherd so he had a look of meanness to him. I always had to put him up when the players came over because they were scared of him, and Rod Strickland would never leave his car unless he knew he was locked up.

The thing is he would never hurt anyone if he knew you. We have two other small dogs, and even though they would eat Dash’s food and mess with him while he was sleeping, he would never get nasty with them. He didn’t even bother our cat.

There’s nothing worse than losing family, and Dash was certainly a part of ours. We are going to miss him"

I speak for the rest of BBN when I say we are sorry to hear of the loss and also...

R.I.P 'Dash'