Remembering Lady

Today is the 3rd anniversary of my sweet doggie, Lady, going to doggie heaven. It was quite easily the most terrible day of my entire life.

Here she was in 2002, in her heydey:
She's with her brother, of course, in the kitchen, OF COURSE! She was a terrible beggar, fat, impulsive, anxious, barked too much, was WAAY territorial of Koty and the house and was generally an embarrassment!! And MAN, did I love that dog! My husband also adored her - she was not an easy dog to love if you were looking from the outside, but her incredible sweetness and devotion for my husband and me just melted away all of her terrible traits!

In that photo she is 9 years old and Koty is a mere 3 years old! Crazy!

Fun times on the boat:Koty and Lady were inseparable. They just bonded the very first time we all met and that was that! Love at first sight for all four of us!

They loved to "help" us when we went fishing!


They loved to hang out together inside or out:


It was most difficult when Lady's health started declining...This picture was taken a day or so after her prognosis of cancer of the spleen, lungs and just about anywhere else you can imagine inside her; taken in April of 2007:


Here she was still kicking in July of 2007:

And this is the last picture of her we took. This was the middle of September in 2009:It's funny how just looking at this picture you can tell she is not well. Dogs get a distant look in their faces when things are not copesetic.

She lasted almost 3 months more after this shot was taken, but she was SO skinny by that time, I just couldn't bear to take pictures of her looking so little and frail. It was a painful, very difficult time for our little family and I still cry over losing her. I know she died when she really needed to go...It was amazing - the vets and specialists that saw her x-rays and ultrasounds saw how sick she was inside - so sick that unbeknownst to us, they had given her maybe 5 or 6 days to live when we took her in in April. Her only symptom was that she didn't want to eat her dog food anymore.

So, I resorted to fixing her steak or chicken or hamburgers or anything that seemed to appeal to her on that day. I spent literally that entire time from April to December devoted to her every need! We got her acupuncture which really seemed to stimulate her appetite; we had her on good pain meds; and we would run out to Wendy's to get her hamburgers or the deli down the street for their steak tips which she really loved! My husband and I literally did everything in our power to make her feel happy, comfortable and secure and VERY loved.

The vets were amazed that she lived for so long...Our main vet tells our story to others in similar situations - that there really is something to be said for the power of doing nothing (no heroic surgeries or steroids or chemo which may or may not have given us more time with her)...It was the power of love alone that kept her going despite her illness.

I love you Lady. And I really miss you.