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.