Family's Best Friend

In May of 2005, I was three months away from getting married. I had been living by myself in an apartment for over a year and a half. I have always had crazy and vivid dreams. But one night, I had a dream that is the only dream that has ever lead me to act on it in real life. I had a dream I got a puppy. The day after, I was just convinced, I needed a puppy. What I did next was really probably wrong in a lot of ways, but I had made up my mind. I went to the store and got a bag of dog food (before actually getting a dog, mind you). I set it on my kitchen table and when Ryan came over to my apartment after work that day and saw it there, I said, "I want to get a dog- I bought the food so you know I'm serious!" Looking back on it, I guess it was a little manipulative and unfair. We had many times since wondered why we thought it was a good idea to get a dog at the point, but I still think it was for me a longing for company at night- even if I was getting married in three months!

So off we went to the puppy mill (horrible places, by the way, but all we knew of to go just "look at" dogs.) We fell in love with this little catty wompass running runt of a "snorkie" (half Schnauzer, half Yorkie). I wanted her in a bad way, but Ryan wasn't sold. I left that Friday afternoon broken hearted and empty handed. The next morning Ryan called, he had to go to work, but he told me to go get the dog (being the sweet man he is). He didn't have to say it twice, I was off and Maggie was mine, ahem, ours.

And she was just about the cutest little puppy you ever did see!

And for just a short while, she was our baby.

It wasn't long of course, before we brought our "real" babies home and things changed, as I think they just naturally do, and Maggie became "the dog". 

But looking back on it now, and looking through a lot of these older pictures, I can really see just how much a part of our family Maggie really was. She was there waiting for us every time we brought our babies home for the first time. And she loved them and even at such small ages, they did her.

 She never was much of a walker =)

This one has always been my animal lover!

Even Sadie has been calling Maggie by name over the last couple weeks!

About two years ago I woke up in the middle of the night thinking Maggie was digging in our covers (she did have a spot snuggled in our bed for many a years). Annoyed, I tried getting her to stop. When I realized she wasn't listening I realized something more was going on. She was having a seizure. We took her to the vet and   after realizing the seizures were going to be a regular occurrence, started her on medicine twice a day. It was hard to remember to give it to her twice a day with all the chaos, but we did the best we could and felt we controlled them for the most part, but they managed to sneak in now and again. About six months ago, we noticed Maggie was going blind. It was quite obvious, and slowly things got worse. When she did have a seizure it was very hard for her to recover. She slept about 90% of the day, she would walk around in circles, and even lately we would find her whimpering and shaking or just staring at the wall. She definitely was not herself anymore. She had to stop sleeping in our bed because she would just run off the edge in the middle of the night. I had been avoiding taking her to the vet. Finally I did on Monday, and our sweet vet who goes to our church decided Maggie had a brain tumor. I thought the seizures had caused her to go blind, but he could tell it was a central nerve problem and not a problem with her eyes. He assured me that it was okay to not let her suffer anymore. I had Hannah with me, she had begged me to go with, and I had let her. I decided to bring Maggie home with us that night to give the kids fair warning of what was coming, and to give myself a little more time to love on her. We took her back this morning and left her in the good hands of the vet. I felt at peace about putting her down, but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard. I am not writing this to be a Debbie Downer, and I am fully aware that in the scheme of things she was "just a dog" but since this is the journal of our family, I felt it only right to document her short and sweet little life. We loved her a lot- all 4 1/2 full grown pounds of her. 

This morning I got up and gave her a bath and a treat, snuggled her lots, let her lay in the sunshine, and got some pics of her last morning with us.

Bennett informed me he wanted to play with her. It has been a long time since she has played, but Bennett wanted her to have the balls any way.

Sweet girl.

Maggie

"MagPie", "Maggers", "Maggie Mo", "the Magster", "Mag-aroni and Cheesy Goodness"

March 17th, 2005- March 11th 2011