Goodbye my sweet friend...

In loving memory of my sweet first furbaby, Tag.  RIP - January 23, 2012.  10 1/2 yrs old.

We received this plaster mold of Tag's paw today in the mail from the vet college.  How precious to have!

For a while now we knew our sweet Tag was getting close to our time to say goodbye.  But how can one EVER "prepare" for such a moment.  Of course, we always prayed he would just go to sleep and one morning we would wake to him resting in peace.  But that was not how it was to play out.

At 1am on the 23rd of this month, Tag kept needing to go outside, but wouldn't actually do anything.  Then after 1am I noticed him hunched over in our hallway.  I thought he was going to be sick, however, when I turned on the lights I saw blood down our hall runners.  Sadly Tag had started to bleed out from his rear end.  And it was that moment we knew our time had come.

I made the call to our vets office, which was closed, but patched our call through to the Vet Clinic on our university campus.  I explained what was happening, and that we felt it was time that we had no other choice but to say goodbye to our sweet boy.  We couldn't even try to make him wait until our own vet opened later that morning.  The clinic advised that they would be waiting for Tag and Brett, and had an emergency team waiting for them. 

What a moment to prepare to take our sweet boy for a final ride in the truck.  I just sat by Tag while Brett got dressed and gathered himself, and I just hugged and kissed him and thanked him for the many years he unconditionally loved me and took care of me and protected me and got me through so many difficult days.
Our other boxer, Bailey, stayed by his side too.

My final memory of Tag was getting to see how happy and excited he was to get to go for a final ride in the truck.  My final memory of Tag was of him at peace, and happy, and still his sweet sweet self.
And for that I am grateful.  We didn't have to ever see him in agony or complete demise. 
But watching him still so much his happy self made it just that much harder to say goodbye.

After Brett left, Bailey just stayed by the back door, pacing and drooling and whining.  She knew.  And I think she had known for a while, as the two of them would lay on the same pillow glued side by side for days before hand.  Even the day before this all happened, I should have known.  Tag would not leave my side for an instant, and was doing things that normally made him nervous, just to be by me.  So in my own heart I knew as well that something was on the rise.

What painful, and sad days these past few days have been.  And I received some other saddening news later that same morning we lost Tag...so instead of finding a ray of light, I found myself walking a dark road...and that just piled everything up.

Tag was the MOST amazing dog I've ever known.  So loving, SUCH a clown at heart, so protective and gentle.  He always found a way to make you laugh, and always made you feel so unbelievably and unconditionally loved and not judged.  He was truely my best friend.

It's hard now watching Bailey try to figure out where her brother is.  She is pretty down.  And that's hard to watch.  I've always worried about how she would react when we would have to say goodbye to Tag.  So I've had her with us EVERYWHERE we go, and have gone to the off-leash park the past 2 days.  I know people don't think dogs "get it" or feel grief...but I beg to differ.  Dogs know emotion.  I know they know emotion.  All you have to do is look in to your dogs eyes when YOU are hurting, and you see that all they want to do is take that saddness away.  And when they lose their partner...they grieve.

I choose to believe that heaven holds a special place for our sweet furbabies.  I like to believe that my heavenly children were there waiting to greet their turn with Tag.  I imagine all 4 of my heavenly angels taking turns hugging Tag and loving him.  And that's what I keep in my mind and heart.

We always say how fast time goes by.  But when you lose someone you love...you realize just HOW fast that time goes.  We had Tag for 10 1/2 years.  That's a lot for a boxer.  But I still remember the day we went to "just look" at him, planning not to jump in to buying him...but we saw him, bought him and never looked back.  I remember holding him in a blanket on the way home, the way he snuggled in to my neck.  I remember every year with him.  He was amazing, and he will never be matched.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE and ADORE my Bailey as well in her own way, and the day we have to say goodbye to her...will be another heart wrenching day.  She is my lover-doggy.  My compassionate one.  All she cares about is pleasing us and making us happy and loving us to no end.

What a treasure our pets our.  They are more than just animals.  They are our family.  And losing one of them is losing family.

We love you always sweet Tag, and you will never EVER be forgotten!