In Loving Memory of Lady Gwenivere

When I was a little girl we had a huge German Sheppard named Duke. My sister and I would feed him mud pies and he'd bark if the neighborhood kids got too close to our yard. He and our siamese cat Boots And Socks were the only pets we had growing up. We begged my mom over the years, she but never gave in.

Curled up on a couch pillow with her summer puppy cut.

In hindsight I don't blame her, but at the time it seemed so unfair! So I vowed to get a dog as soon as I moved out on my own.

It didn't take long. My first roommate, Nikki, had rescued a lost pekingese and grew very attached by the time she found it's owners. So she was on a mission to find one of her very own. When she found a litter of puppies for sale, I went with her -- just to look! But as soon as I saw those tiny little fluff balls I was in love.

Nikki picked up a little black one, handed her to me and said, "This one's yours."

Mine? My heart melted. She was adorable. And so tiny. She must have been 3 or 4 lbs. And she just looked up at me with her big round eyeballs. I promised myself right then I would do anything for that dog.

Picnicking in La Jolla.

We got them all set up in a box with blankets and newspaper and we gave them names. Nikki's little white fur ball was Amore. And I thought Lady Gwenivere was so clever because she was such a little princess and I could call her Gwen for short, after Gwen Stefani!

As puppies they chewed everything in sight and barked all night long. We had no success with our lame house training efforts. We were 20 and we had no idea what we were doing. We were lucky that our roommate (and good friend) Rechelle was great with dogs. She helped out a lot and between the three of us we made it work.


Sunbathing.



After a year or so, Nikki and I moved to different places and the sisters got separated. It was a lot different having one dog. Instead of playing with her sister all the time, she depended on me for attention. It was great that she actually listening to me, but it was so hard to leave her alone all day. She would just look up at me with those big round eyes.

Over the years we went through a lot together. I know I wasn't the best dog owner, especially in my 20s. But things got much better when we moved in with Pat. I realized that I had been like a single parent all those years. Now he was there to help me take care of her. She became his dog too and we were one happy little family.

With a few exceptions, she stayed pretty healthy until she was about 14. She started slowing down and the vets noticed she had some fused vertebrae. She stopped jumping onto the couch and the bed. Then we had to carry her up and down the stairs.


One year we got matching snuggies for Christmas.



We were at the airport on the way to our honeymoon in St. Lucia when we got a call from the vet that she had kidney disease. We worried about her the whole time and when we got home we had to learn how to give her fluid injections. This involved sticking a long needle under skin that was attached to an IV bag. It was quite a process. Thank goodness for Pat - he did the injecting while I held her still. It's pretty crazy to think we did that every other day for almost a year. It was a good exercise in team work...

Over the last few months, she slowed down even more and started to have trouble walking. The vets suggested acupuncture, so we gave it a try. It didn't seem to help, so we tried water therapy, which involved having her walk on a treadmill in a tub of water. It was expensive and time consuming, but we were willing to do pretty much anything to keep her healthy. And she didn't seem to mind all of this. I think she liked all the attention. And she seemed to be making a little progress.



Our family trip to Santa Barbara.

Then in early September, she got sick. Really sick. She couldn't hold anything down... Then she stopped eating, and drinking.

The vets ran tests and ruled out anything curable. They guessed it was something like stomach cancer. I couldn't bear to put her through any more tests. And at 15, recovering from something like cancer seemed pretty unlikely. And when she looked at me with her big round eyes, I could tell she was miserable.

Making the decision to say goodbye was by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Its been almost a month now and I've fluctuated between being unbearably sad and somewhat at peace. I know (or at least I am constantly telling myself) that we did the right thing. But not having her here is really hard. When I was home, she was always right there at my feet. Taking her outside was the first thing I did every morning and the last thing I did every night. I still wake up and look for her.

I hope this doesn't sound like a cry for sympathy. I just really wanted to tell the story of how I fell in love with the sweetest little dog and honor her life in one more small way. I know it will get easier with time. I keep trying to focus on the positives. She lived to be 15! She filled my life with so much joy!

I was so lucky to have her as a part of my life. And she will always have a place in my heart.