Some of you may already know this, but last week DH and I said goodbye to our “Granny” Blaze. I'm a little behind in letting you all know, but I just couldn't find the words for a few days. We were hoping to be able to wait until the end of Spring so that we could spend some more time w/ her and she could get some warm sunshine, but it didn’t work out that way. There was no one big issue, like cancer, that brought us to this point, though in some ways that may have made it easier. But she had been in pain, and struggling for awhile. We made the choice because she was no longer able to do any of the things she enjoyed, so watching her, most of the time it didn’t seem like there was enough good times balancing out all of her bad times. We could have waitied longer, it wasn’t dire, but it just didn’t seem fair. My sister works at the Humane Society near where we live, so we took Blaze there so that she could do it, I preferred having it be someone who knew and cared about Blaze, and while our vet probably does, it’s not the same.
I feel guilty. Not for putting her down, but because I don’t think I was nearly the owner she deserved all along. I knew absolutely nothing about dogs when I finally wore my Dad down enough to get her. She was my birthday/Christmas present when I turned 15. I think we did everything wrong when it came to house breaking. Then after only having her a bit over a year, we moved and couldn’t take her, so she lived at my grandfather’s farm. I didn’t really like that but there wasn’t much I could do and she could go in the barn (then later just a dog house) and my Grandfather was down there every day and gave her lovings. I was able to go visit her, too. Finally, a few years later, I was able to move her into the apartment I moved to.
Despite my complete ignorance on dog ownership, she was a great dog, and generally well behaved. Social butterfly, she completely believed that everyone loved her and was just waiting for her to come over to them so that they could pet her. She was so sweet that she ended up being right for the most part ;) .
She was pretty much indifferent on the other pets my ex-husband and I acquired over the years. I feel guilty now, because while she didn’t bother the other pets, if I had paid better attention to her I would have seen that she would have preferred to be the only dog and center of attention. She did get some one on one time, but I think back now to how much more I could have given her if it had been just her.
I learned so much about being a dog owner b/c of her. I wish I could go back and do everything over with her. I wonder sometimes, if I would have had a clue, how much different she would have been. Or maybe if I had done things better earlier, would she have been able to be here longer, or not had as much pain in the end?
I’m not the only one who misses her. She may have been “my dog” in the sense that I brought her with me when DH and I got together, but she didn’t waste any time in winning him over. He adored her and he was crushed last week.
Here are some pictures of our beautiful girl.
