Our baby dog left us this past Thursday, leaving a big hole in our lives.  She wasn’t actually a baby anymore at 14 years old, but we still called her that.  I am writing this post as a celebration of her life.

 

Meeting Day

Soon after I retired, I began looking for a dog.  I found Annie online.  She was listed with the DFW Metro Golden Retriever Rescue organization.  I was first attracted to her picture.  But I was also attracted by her name.  It was Gale!  Same as me and spelled the same, too!  Coincidence?  I think not!

The above picture is our first meeting.  It was June 19, 2010.  We brought her home that same day.  The name had to change.  We couldn’t have two Gales in the house!  So I kind of gave her my middle name.  It’s Ann, so she became Annie.  Look how skinny she is!  The vet estimated her age at 2 years old.

In the car on the way to her new home.  She looks a little worried, doesn’t she.  Poor baby!

The first thing she did when we got her to the house was run away!  I had to get in the car and chase her down and bring her back home.  Here she’s safely tucked away in the back yard surveying her new domain.

As you can see here, she didn’t stay that skinny for too long.  I think this picture was taken about 2 years later.

 

Separation Anxiety

This was one of the first issues we had to deal with.  We bought a crate to keep her in and started crate training.  One day I came home to this:

 

Now, I know the title of this post is “She was SUCH a good girl!”, and she was!  This problem was pretty short-lived.  The unbelievable part was that her crate was properly closed when I left the house.  And it was still closed when I got home!  She was able to squeeze out!  Crazy!  After that, we had to put a couple of extra clamps on the crate door.

 

Fun Times!

It wasn’t long before she was acclimated to her surroundings, and we could really begin to enjoy each other.

After a good rain, she loved running through the water-filled swale on our property!

She also enjoyed running and playing in the snow the few times a year that it appeared:

She was entertainment for both Mom and me one day when she decided to show off by tearing around the yard:

 

Not sure how much fun it was for her, but it was fun for me to sometimes dress her up.  The first fall she was with us, the Rangers went to the World Series.

She doesn’t look too thrilled.  She must have known they were going to lose.  I also dressed her up as a mummy that year for Halloween.  Couldn’t find the picture.

 

Best Buddies

Annie’s life-long best friend was Sunny, my daughter Cara’s dog.  Annie was never really big on toys, so it was always a treat to watch when she and Sunny played tug-o-war with a toy.

Her other best buddy was my son Danny’s dog Taos.  She was a fellow golden retriever.

One Christmas season, Danny and Taos were with us, and we went for a walk with a group that Annie’s trainer put together.  The walk was along the Trinity Trail in Fort Worth into downtown to see the Christmas lights.

Annie’s trainer, Terri, is on Danny’s left in this picture in the plaid shirt.  I can’t say enough about her.  She helped me learn how to work in baby steps to train Annie.  Since Annie was not motivated by treats like most dogs, building trust was slow-going.  Terri knew just how to work with Annie to reach that trust goal.  She was a life saver!

Annie did eventually get to where she liked treats, but she was still picky about them.  However, one treat she liked was peanut butter.  Whenever we got to the bottom of a peanut butter jar, that jar became Annie’s treat.  We kept Taos for a season, and when it was time for the peanut butter jar treat, she was there.

Annie always made a bee-line for under the table with her peanut butter jar.  Taos, on the other hand, wasn’t sure how to handle this kind of treat.  I ended up scraping it out for her so she could eat it, and she was happy. 😁

 

A dog for all ages

Annie was so good with both of our granddaughters and all kids really.  Just look at this video:

 

But she was also great with the older generation.  Here she is with Mom:

 

Learning

Annie learned many things through the help of Terri.  She learned to come, sit, down, touch, and stay.  But one thing she had to kind of learn on her own was stairs.  When we visited Cara and her family in Houston, she got that skill down really quick!  Such a good girl!

 

Habits

I suppose all dogs develop certain habits that become part of who they are.  I know Annie did.

One habit she had happened when she went outside.  She loved to throw herself down on the ground and roll back and forth!

She did it all times of year…not just when there was snow on the ground.  However, she did abstain when it was raining, thank goodness!

She was always very frightened of storms and fireworks and gunfire.  (We do have gunfire sounds here from time to time living in the county, as we do.)  It’s something she never grew out of.  One night I found her in my closet like this when someone was shooting off fireworks:

 

Something else she often did was lay with her nose nuzzled right up into a corner.  It didn’t look comfortable at all, and sometimes it amplified her breathing.  But she did it quite a lot.

 

She never barked…never.  If she wanted out, she just stood by the door.

Just stood there.  Never barked, never scratched at the door.  Just waited patiently for someone to notice.

Same thing for when she wanted back in.  No scratching at the door.  No jumping up on the door like a lot of dogs would do.  Just stood there.  What a sweet girl!  Tonight I caught myself looking at the back door in case she was standing there wanting in.  Then I realized, she won’t be standing there wanting in any more.

Another fear she had was of the vacuum cleaner.  Most of the time when I brought out the vacuum, she would just make herself scarce.  But sometimes, she stood at a safe distance and watched, waiting for me to finish.

 

And lastly, she had her favorite places to lay.  I always knew where to look for her.  If she wasn’t next to my chair in the living room, then she might be against the wall under the window in our bedroom.  But the place she stayed the most was in the dining area, like in this picture:

And that’s where she was when she started to leave us.

Well, I was crying when I started to write this.  Then I started feeling better remembering all the wonderful times we had together.  Now I’m crying again.  I guess it’ll take a while.  I still anticipate seeing her when I’ve gone somewhere and am almost home again.  I hear a sound in the house, and sometimes it sounds like her tags jangling or her nails on the wood floor.  It’ll be okay.  But for now, I’m really missing her.