Love Is Watching Someone Die

Death is a low blow.  Even if you did see it coming a mile away.
When I was pregnant with Zachary, I got this crazy idea that I wanted a dog.  I have always wanted a dog or a cat or both.  When I was a little girl, I would take my stuffed puppy, tie a string around its neck, and drag it around outside my neighborhood - up and down the street.  My mom is allergic to dogs and cats, so I could never have a furry creature in the house.  Instead, I brought in Box Elder bugs and kept them as pets instead.  It drove my mother nuts.
I went down to the animal shelter, thinking that I would get a puppy, but instead, I found a beautiful dog that was white with brown spots all over her body and face.  She came up to me and said, "Please take me home."  So I did.  She didn't have a name, so while I was bringing her home, I was thinking about what to call her.  "Her name is Abbey," I thought.  When I told my friend what we named her she promptly yelled, "You can't name her that!  I wanted to name my first daughter Abigail!"  "Whoever said you can't couldn't still name her that?"  We aren't close any more.
When Kurtis walked into our apartment, she started shaking and wanted to run and hide.  That's when we knew she was abused in the past.  She did not like brooms, or men.  She quickly learned that I was the crazy one (pregnancy makes me insanely angry), though.  She learned that if she got into the garbage can, and strew food all over the floor, I would not like that and I would yell at her.  She still got into the garbage can.  We got one with a lid.
When Zachary was born, we brought him home and they became best friends.  I have a picture of him in his book where he is crawling up behind her.  She started to wag her tail and whacked him in the face with it.  He loved it.  She put up with all of my boys.  Zach would try to ride her.  Riley liked to lay on her like she was a pillow.  She just licked them.
But she grew old.  Her face started to turn from brown to white.  Her hind legs started to give out on her.  It was a struggle to get up and go outside.  She couldn't hear us as well and she couldn't see.  She started loosing weight.  In her prime, she was 35 pounds.  Last week, I had Zach weigh her.  She was 21 pounds. :(  Often in order to get her to go outside, we would stick a treat under her nose and get her to follow it out the door.  You had to be careful, though.  You had to pull it away before she snapped it out of your hands.  She didn't want to bite your hand off with the treat, but if you just put the treat in your hand, she sometimes would.  And yes, it hurt.
Yesterday morning, after the boys got food ready for the dogs, Zachary let them in the house, but she wouldn't come.  Zachary carried her inside.  She refused to eat.  Kurtis and I knew her time to go was soon.  We tried to call the Humane Society, but they didn't answer their phone.  So we stayed with her as she lay on our kitchen floor just breathing.  She wouldn't drink anything either.  I knew she wouldn't make it through the night then.  I prayed that God would show her mercy and not make her suffer long.  Kurtis and I took Zach to get new shoes and go grocery shopping.  When we came back, he sat with her.  Kurtis had to take a break and go do something else.  While I was sitting with her and petting her and crying and telling her we loved her, she threw up.  She immediately started trying to lick it up.  I called Kurtis to come upstairs and help me.  She still wouldn't drink anything.  Kurtis told me to go to the other grocery store we go to and take Zach, so I could get my mind off it for a little while.  I had to stop crying first.
After we got back, Kurtis told me he managed to get her to drink something by squirting water into her mouth and down her throat with a spray bottle.  That seemed to make her more comfortable.  But her breathing slowly faded to nothing and her heart stopped.  She left us last night at around 7:30 p.m.
We took her to an animal ER and they will cremate her remains.  They offer a service where they take a cast of her paw print (like the little kid's hand print in the plaster of paris), and we decided to get one of those.  I'll show it to you when it comes.
She really was such a good dog.  We are going to miss her so much.

Christmas 2000.  She joined our family.

 Riley is playing with her tags.  They fascinated him.  Zach would sit on her like that.  It was cute, so I took the picture.  Then I told him to get off her. She never seemed to mind too much, though.  ;)

 Kisses.

 Zach's third birthday.  Someone thought she should join in the fun.

 She came with us to Colorado once.

 Kurtis and Abbey loved to play together.

 Jeremy and Kaleb at another of Zach's birthday parties.

 Just hanging out.

 This picture just makes me laugh. :)

 Meeting the new puppy.

 Riley loved her kisses.

Meeting the cat.

 These pictures aren't really in any particular order.

Dogs make great friends.