Everyone knows I am a dog person but you may be wondering where did this obsession come from? My parents are also dog people. For as long as I have been alive, my family has always had a dog (if not two or three). Our first family dog was Goldie. He looked just like Lassie! My parents got him before I was born and he was with us for 16 years. He was the best dog. Always watching over us as babies and playing with us as kids in the yard. He obeyed every command and never once left the yard.
We got our second dog when my siblings and I were still really young kids. She looked like a miniature version of Goldie. She was a miniature shetland sheep dog. She did not make height to be a show dog so my Dad got her for my Mom's birthday and my sister named her Cookie. She was a sassy little dog. She probably never weighed more than 20 pounds but her personality made her seem like she was a 50+ pound dog. She used to attack the dishwasher when it was running. She would herd in the yard when cars would start and run in tiny circles then big circles all the way around the yard. She was always a show dog at heart.
After Goldie passed away but we still had Cookie, my parents decided it was time for a puppy! They had picked out a Labrador Retriever and we got to go to the breeders house and pick him up. I remember riding in the car on the way home from getting him and he just sat in the front seat like a champ. We talked the whole car ride about what we would name him and my Dad picked out the name Eli (I won't tell you after who because my Auburn heart will break! haha). He was all puppy! He chewed anything and everything he could get into. He loved to fetch and run around with us in the yard. Eli was with us through our teenage years and into my college years. He stayed with us through our years of only caring about ourselves but was the most loyal dog.
While we still had Cookie and Eli a stray dog showed up at our house. She looked just like Eli but she was a female and she was in heat. Therefore, we quickly learned about the birds and the bees. My parents called our local vet because she showed up with no tags and by the end of the month, no one had claimed her. So she became our third dog and we named her Sister because she looked just like Eli. Sister was a rowdy dog. She was also a lab with a gypsy soul. She had so much energy. They became outside dogs until Sister would not stop getting out and wandering the neighborhood. They both got older and slowed down a little bit and the dogs moved back into the house. But imagine, a house with three dogs, two parents and three teenage kids... CHAOS! But I would not have wanted it any other way.
We lost our first dog, Goldie, when I was in the fourth grade. I had never experienced the loss of a dog or anyone for that matter. Death had never really impacted me and I did not really know how to process it. I just always thought we would see him again one day so it was okay. He was gone for now but not forever.
I was in college before we lost the next dog - Eli. By this time I had experienced a lot of human loss and understood what death meant. My parents knew this one would hit me hard and I was out of town on Spring Break when he passed. They called my boyfriend at the time (now husband) to tell me about his passing. I think I knew then that Brenden was a keeper because he was so kind and compassionate when he told me that I thought he was making a sick joke.
Still in college and shortly after Eli died, we had to put Cookie down. If I remember correctly she was 17 or 18 years old when her time came and it was my Dad's birthday. My sister is still traumatized by this loss because she passed my Dad on the way to the vet that day. After this day, we were left with our gypsy girl, Sister.
For years, we joked this is our last Christmas with her. She's a lab after all and they really don't live past 10-12 years old. She was 17 years old when she went to doggie heaven to join our other three dogs. And for some reason this loss has hit me harder than most. She was the last of our family dogs to pass. She was with us for a really really long time! But just like the other three dogs she was a part of our family.
Dogs become a part of you. They steal a piece of your heart and you will probably never get that piece back. Our family dogs are in a lot of my memories from my childhood. From baby pictures with Goldie sitting right beside my mat but never on it; Cookie running circles around us in the back yard; Eli constantly on the go, chasing balls and bouncing with us on the trampoline; to Sister loving on her stuffed toys like they were her babies. Losing Sister was the final chapter of my childhood.
Now that all of us kids are grown adults and we all have our own dogs, I realize we are in that early stage of our lives. Like when my parents got their first dog as newlyweds. (Brenden and I just went full force and got three right away ha!) Our dogs are a part of the next chapter in our adult lives. They are helping us write the next chapters. Stealing one piece of our heart just like my childhood dogs. Saying goodbye is never easy and if I had my way dogs would outlive humans. But I am thankful and so grateful that my parents raised us with dogs. They taught me so much about love, loyalty, and how to have fun. They also taught me responsibility, care for some(one/thing) else. I was a dog person before I could walk. And I'll continue being a dog person and letting more dogs into my heart for as long as I'm able to be on this Earth.
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