Sadie was my heart and soul...

A week ago today Sadie lost her battle with Bone Cancer. Thursday night she started crying and was unable to get comfortable again. She would look deep into my eyes and as much as I wanted to deny it, she was ready. We called the vet and had a few minutes before we had to meet him. We sat on the floor with her as she gave kisses, sat on laps and got one last belly rub. When the time came we took her in and I stayed with her, petting her, playing with her ear and kissing her. I talked very little but she could feel everything I couldn’t say. I gave her one last kiss before I walked away.  When I came home I put all her things away, crying like I never have for any human.

 I will miss her sweet face and all of her expressions! I will miss the way her fur feels under my hand. I will miss the feel of her soft ear. I will miss the look in her eyes when I talk to her. I will miss the cute way she sleeps with her nose hid in her paws. I will miss her smile. I will miss everything.

We still went away for the weekend. It was a long car ride full of more long cries. I felt so sad, heartbroken, empty and lost. Duste never knows what to do with me when I am quiet. But I am quiet because it takes all my energy to use self talk to keep myself from crying. Sadness, pure sadness is hard for me to put to words. Anger is something I am much more comfortable with. After several hours on our vacation my grey cloud had lifted a little and I decided I must get a tattoo. I had never gotten a tattoo before; as I could not decide on something I would want on my body for the rest of my life. Duste and I had talked about getting one for each other but something always stopped me. (They are against the dress code at my work and I see no point in getting one somewhere no one would see it.) When my Chopper dog died, many years ago, I thought about getting one then but again talked myself out of it. This time I was going to do it—screw the rules no one else followed them why should I. After talking it over with Duste we decided the what/where and we got in the car and followed the GPS. Hours after talking about it I had my first tattoo—two dog prints on the inside of my left wrist; in memory of my furbabies Chopper and Sadie. Since getting the tattoo something unexpected happened, I no longer felt like crying every minute. I may not be able to have my babies with me forever but I would have this and that made me feel better. We had a good rest of vacation and neither of us wanted to come home. I loved the early morning walks on the beach!

Coming home was hard. The house seems so empty, quiet and lonely. Everywhere I look I see where she used to be. Getting used to this new normal is going to be hard. We do want another dog but we will wait. We are going to wait until after our last vacation this year before we even start our search. After lots of talks and research we have decided on the BullBoxer as our new breed. We just love pits but traveling can be more difficult with a pure pitty so we have decided to go with a mix again. I am exhausted just thinking about having a puppy again but it will be a new adventure and we will fall in love all over again.

We really want this one to be more dog friendly so we are really going to step it up in the socialization and we are going to start the training early. We learned it is best when the dog knows you are in charge. Maybe when my heads in a better place we will start the name game….

I am a mother by nature and not having something to take care of is really hard for me.

I did something I have never done after losing someone I love—I put up pictures. I wanted to see her sweet face again, at the places I look for her most. We also started looking through pictures; Sadie had one hell of a life for 12 yrs!

Like I explained it before, I love with walls, with my guard always up. There are very few I love without fear and my dog is one of them. That is why it hurt so badly.

Sadie~I will miss you more than words can say. Go run, play and show your brother you can out run him again! I will see you both again one day.  Mommy loves you both~