Roscoe the Disabled Pug won’t need his wheelchair any more, after skipping up the stairs to that glorious dog run in the sky.

The little dog with the squashed snout and paralyzed hind legs died Monday at age 10, from internal bleeding caused by an immunity problem, said a staffer at the McCowan Animal Clinic, where he was a patient.

“I’m sad, very sad,” said an emotional Christine Borsuk, Roscoe’s owner. “I look back and I wish I had held him even more than I did. You’re never quite ready for this.”

Roscoe had his 15 minutes of fame in 2011, after we wrote about the theft of his tiny customized wheelchair, leaving left Borsuk unable to take him for his beloved daily walk.

For exercise, she had to rig up a sling and tuck Roscoe’s rear legs into it, after his wheelchair disappeared from the front porch of her home.

Roscoe became a sensation after our column, with TV cameras following his every move while Borsuk walked behind him to carry his legs in the sling while he hobbled along.

Offers of financial help and doggy wheelchairs came from as far away as British Columbia, California and North Carolina before a woman who had a wheelchair almost identical to Roscoe’s gave it to him.

A guy in Montreal emailed to say he’d build him a new wheelchair, while hundreds of others expressed outrage that anyone could be cruel enough to steal something that was almost certainly of no use to them.

It’s a tough time for Borsuk, who brought Roscoe home as a pup while she was battling cancer. She didn’t expect to survive and wanted a dog that she could share with her daughter, figuring they’d bond after she was gone.

Borsuk beat the cancer, but Roscoe’s rear legs became paralyzed when he was six months old, a problem to which pugs are predisposed, before she got bought him a specially fitted wheelchair at a cost of $500.

When the publicity tailed off, Borsuk and Roscoe resumed their routine of daily walks with his rear legs supported by the wheelchair. By then, he was a minor celebrity in their neighbourhood.

“After that, I felt that he was everyone’s dog,” she said. “Everyone knew him.”

Roscoe wasn’t himself in the last few days, she said. He was less enthused about his walks and didn’t have his usual energy. She knew something was wrong when she noticed blood in his urine.

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On Monday night, he got out of the bed he usually slept in, curled up on a bag of clothes and died.