Very Sad...

I lost a very special friend.  She was one in a million and I will never have another friend like her.

I hesitate to even write because words will not do her justice.  She was that special.

She came into our lives in 2006 when she was 6 years old.  Her original owners were unable to keep her.  I truly believe they must have loved her because she was so sweet.  I found her on Pet Finders and she was being fostered by a Veterinarian's wife.  She had needed two surgeries and was finally ready to be adopted.

Her name was Sophie and we weren't about to rename her.  That name belonged to her.

She was a Miniature Schnauzer with a laid back Collie or Lab's personality.  Yes, she barked like a Schnauzer, but loved everyone she met.  I would joke that if someone broke in while we were gone she would run up and lick them and act like their new best friend.

She even loved and tolerated the cats.  That's her in the upper right hand corner.

One of the cats had a bad habit of making Sophie move.  If Sophie was sleeping on one of the couches Murphy would go over and nudge her until she moved.  Usually she'd jump off one couch and onto the other and lay down with a sigh.  That's about as much as she'd complain.

She enjoyed sleeping in cat beds more than the cats.

I suspect at times she might have thought she was a cat.

In May I took her to the Veterinarian and she had lost some weight.  That was strange because she was eating just fine.  But over the summer she stopped eating as well and finally didn't want to eat much at all.

We ended up taking her to a specialist and she had lumps and bumps in her spleen.  It was probably cancer.  I opted for surgery, but her pre-op blood work showed that her kidney wasn't functioning as well anymore.  (She only had one good kidney.)  We tried IV's to see if the numbers would improve, but they didn't improve enough.  She did start eating a little more, so we brought her home to love for a little while longer.  We knew the days were numbered.

I didn't want her trying to jump on and off my bed, so we put one of those blow up mattresses smack dab in the middle of the den floor.  Reid and I took turns sleeping there with her at night.

She loved all the extra attention.  She was in no pain.  We became pretty creative trying to find things she would eat.  Reid had some success with dog omelets.  Since she loved eggs he'd put dog food inside an omelet.

Eventually that wouldn't even work.

Reid and I talked.  We knew it was time to let our friend go.  Last Thursday we took her for a long car ride.  That was one of her favorite things to do.  We drove back over to Friendswood and took her for a ride past our old house.  When we turned down the street she sat up straight.  She had always done that when we lived there and would return home.  Somehow she knew.

We took her for one last ride on Friday.  She was always happy to go to the Veterinarian and last Friday was no exception.  In a way that made it easier.

We miss her so much.  She was definitely one in a million.  I feel so sad and lost without her.  Jim used to say that he had "one dog" and I had "all those cats,"  but she truly belonged to all of us.