All good things must end.

As I was looking at my first post on Gretchen, I noticed that I had written it in March of 2009. I lost Gretchen on October 9, 2009. The last months with this wonderful dog taught me so much about life and death. She was a very proud dog (and rightly so), but when her legs totally gave out, she recognized immediately that she was dependant on me for everything. She did not lay down and die as many expected her to do. It took us a couple of weeks of literally no sleep to develop a code to let me know exactly what she needed at any given time. The "I'm going to scratch all the finish off the furniture meant she had soiled her diaper and wanted it off...now! The total contortion of her upper body and big piles of icky silicone meant I was not fast enough and she would get it off herself. Sometimes she just wanted a change of scenery. I would lift her and tell her where we were going...window, office or kitchen and she would lead to which ever location I had said. She usually had to be within reach of my foot, so I could stay in contact with her. Most nights as she slept next to my bed (she could no longer get in the bed) my foot would be off the side and on her back. I not sure who got the most comfort from this. The day she died had been a normal day. She did not seem to be in any distress until the last hour, then she whined a little and seemed restless, so I lifted her and we traveled to every favorite spot of hers in the house. Then I am not sure if the pain was worse or if she was satisfied and knew she was going, she led me back to the bedroom and laid down. An hour later she was gone. I miss her every day and just hold on to what Larry said when she died....She's running in heaven.

The Best Dog in the World

I wanted to put down in writing memories of my thirteen year old German Shepherd. She is in her last days with me and the up coming loss is almost too much to bear.
Larry gave her to me for my forty first birthday. He had seen an ad in the paper for puppies born on January 1, 1996 and available for pick-up on February 13...my birthday. He took that as a sign. We went a couple of weeks before to pick out our new puppy. The breeder took us out back to her barn where the mother and puppies were. Most of the puppies had already been picked by various sheriffs departments around the Gulf Coast. Of the two left to pick from, one sat there and looked up at us very sweetly and the other bounded up to us and started chewing on Larry's shoe lace. She stole our hearts in an instant! We noticed how calm and sweet the mother was to let us play with her babies and as we left, asked the breeder if we could pet the daddy also...she told us it was not a good idea, we did not pay attention to the fact that the blue ribbon winner of a dog was behind three strands of electrified fence and barking ferociously. Two weeks later my daughter and I made the hour trip and picked up my new puppy... on my birthday. She was such a cute little fur ball! At one point she crawled under the brake peddle and I had to run a stop sign... that was the start of the adventures of Gretchen.