I took her to the vet, knowing that she hadn't eaten in a week, that her legs no longer seemed strong enough to hold her, and that her belly was hugely swollen. I had to help get her in the car, and for the first time in her 14 years she just laid in the front seat and didn't move at all. She needed help getting up the two steps into the vet's office and she had lots of trouble just getting on the scale.
I have known that this day was coming for a while, most of her Lucyness has seemed to be gone for a while, but I think that I believe that if she could still follow me around the house that she was still there somewhere. I will probably never know how she always knew where I was, her sense of smell must have been how she could still find me. Even when it seemed hard for her to get up, if I left the room for just a few seconds she would always get up and follow me.
So after talking to the vet and knowing that more tests and more medicine wasn't the right thing for her, it was still hard to make the final decision. I will admit that I am a selfish person and I want her with me, but in the end I had to be an advocate for her and say that enough was enough. I believe that she knew how much she meant to me, and in the end she is at peace, where ever that may be.
So for Lucy, I thought I'd list a few of my favorite things about this crazy dog that has blessed my life for over 14 years.
- She was with us before Josh and I were legally an "us", and she was very much a part of what that "us" has been for the last 14 years.
- That she removed most of the rubber parts of the doorstops in most of the places we lived with her.
- That she would get all the way by my feet under the covers at night and then dig and spin in a circle before she would lay down to sleep.
- That last big sigh she would do before she fell asleep, the sigh of contentment.
- That no matter how far under the covers she was at the start of the night, she would always be up on our pillows by morning.
- That if you were sitting on the couch and leaned forward, she's squeeze herself behind you in a split second to be where you were and it was warm.
- The endless hours of time she snuggled with me on the couch, especially before the girls were born when that was all I could do, she happily just hung out with me the whole time.
- That she chewed on rolly polly's like they were bubble gum.
- That she would sit at the girls' feet when they were small and just wait for the food to fall, or even steal it off their plates if they were down low enough for her to reach.
- Even though she was allergic to grass she would still roll around in it.
- That she would freak out and run circles around the house and make the girls laugh when they were babies.
- That she loved my homemade peanut butter dog treats.
- That she would just blend into the pillows on her favorite black couch and sleep there for hours.
For the last 14 years, she was always glad to see me, or smell me, when I got home. She gave me unconditional love and I can only hope that I returned it. She was one in a million, a far better dog than we probably deserved, and our first baby. She will be missed.
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