One Year Ago Today

It is so hard to believe that it has been a full year since the death of our beloved family dog Sadie. We still come home from dune trips and exptect to find her waiting at home for us. I wanted to share a post I wrote a year ago today in honor of Sadie:

Good-Bye Sadie

My morning started off as any normal morning. Shower, make-up, coffee, breakfast, waking the kids up, etc. Then our 15 year-old boxer/lab mix Sadie had a seizure on the living room floor when I sat down to eat. I have never experienced seeing this human or canine. Really scared the heck out of me. I quickly had Matt take Avery (our pup) into the bedroom and tried to find the number for an emergency vet near by. I fumbled around through the yellow pages with no luck of an office open and grabed my iPod to check on the internet. My fingers where not moving well as I was shaking and having a hard time seeing through the tears.

Once I finally got through to someone it was over and Sadie was very confused and had no movement in her hind legs. I tried to sit with her while trying to figure out just how to get this 60+ dog into the car by myself. John is out at PIR for the NASCAR race this weekend and called him at 6:30 am to let him know what was going on…wasn’t in a calm state mind you.

Sadie has been having lots of balance issues the last couple of years and we really didn’t think she had much longer in her poor old body. Just this morning she fell as she came in from the doggie door, and John told me she fell a couple times yesterday morning also.

I had made the decision to take her in and have her put down. It was in the best interest for Sadie, both John and I knew this. Meg and Matt cried as they tried to hold Avery back so I could carry Sadie out to the car.

The emergency vet I went to was amazing and helped me carefully get her out of the car and bring her in. They agreed with me that it was time to let Sadie go and let me spend some time alone with her. When I was ready I held Sadie’s big crazy head in my arms and she softly fell asleep. It was amazing to see the pain in her body just disappear as she looked so peaceful.

I left the vet’s office with my black sweater COVERED with Sadie hair. The same hair we complain about in the pillows on the sofa, in the carpet and on all of our black clothing. I went home to change before going into work; still I’m finding Sadie hair here and there. I don’t mind so much today.

We love you Sadie. We will miss you.