A Weekend of Tears

Today's post is more of a journal of how our family feels over the loss of our dear dog, Ashley.

In February 2001, the family (being hubby and the kids who were 5, 3, and 1 at the time) wanted a dog. So being SuperMom, I took the two younger ones with me to the SPCA. The oldest was in kindergarten at the time. We walked down past the pens, but I wasn't feeling it. All of the dogs were jumping up and barking, and I'm not a noise-and-chaos kinda gal. I went out front and told them I didn't see the dog for us. The attendant asked, "Did you see the little yellow one?" and I responded "No, let's look again." We went back and there she was, laying quietly on a blanket. She walked shyly to the gate and the attendant put a leash on her so I could take her outside. And she went potty! She was housetrained! So we brought her home and named her Ashley, our little Corgi-Beagle mix. The photo above was taken a couple months later, right after a visit to the groomers.

The past couple years had been difficult. Ashley was deaf and mostly blind. She had arthritis in her hips. But she was happy and could still find a playful streak (only with me), and had always had severe separation anxiety from me. Of all people. The non-dog lady. The groomer wouldn't take her anymore because it stressed her out too much, so I would take her to the vet to get her nails trimmed. A year ago she had torn her ACL and the vet knew we weren't ready to say good-bye. She stopped going down the stairs, and we had built a deck that would take her to ground level out the back of the house so she could go outside.

Friday night was rough. She was up every couple hours needing out, and then about 3 AM she had an accident in our bathroom and hubby found blood in her urine. We knew it was time. My momma took her on her final vet trip Saturday morning and I cried the rest of the weekend. I cry now typing this.

Ashley, you were the best dog ever. You can never be replaced. We all loved you.