Mourning Chrissy's Death - The best dog I have ever had!!

Before I left the states I told my dog not to die while I was gone and told my mom not to kill my dog while I was gone. Well my mom did really good and so did Chrissy. The Friday after we landed, we went to my mom's for a long weekend. When I got there, my mom told me that Chrissy was not doing too good. I go and find her and she wasn't wagging her tail like she normally does when I am around. So I knew something wasn't right.

She just turned 18 years old in Marchl and was the first dog I ever owned. We have been together for so long. She was my dog that loved to eat M&M's and when she was a pup she chewed up my baby book. She was the oldest dog my father-in-law had ever preformed surgery on. In the last two years she was spayed and had another surgery to remove some tumors from her chest. Each time I thought that she was done for. I guess she knew I was not ready for her to go.

On Sunday she was continuing to cough but with a very weird bark afterwards like she was in pain. A bark that I had never heard from her. My mom calls Rick and tells him that he needs to be heading back our way (he went to Roanoke to see the brothers for Saturday and Saturday night). By this time I am all upset because I have just gotten back in and there is something wrong with my dog. Rick gets there and says that he thinks the tumors have come back and she might be in congestive heart failure. I just hoped that she would keep going until Doc could look at her again when we got back home on Tuesday. He is the best vet I have ever known and the only one I would trust my baby with. That is not just because he is my father-in-law either. He really is a great vet and has a good personality for it.

Sunday evening my family threw a welcome home party for us. I had Chrissy on the couch with me for most of the time and that was all nice until my cousin Richard comes in an sees me upset and says "what happened your dog die or something?" I know he did not mean anything by that because he did not know about Chrissy not being well. So pretty much the entire party I was just upset about the fact that I was going to have to come and realize that she might not be with me much longer. She got through the night and I held her quite some time. That night I cried myself to sleep, something that I had not done in a long time. The next day (Monday) she died. I went to check on her after I got out of the shower that morning and found her dead on her bed. My mom, then Rick found me bawling my eyes out and I was no good to anyone the rest of the day. I was upset that I did not see her alive one last time. My mom and Rick told me that she had eaten her breakfast and went and used the bathroom just fine. Rick had put her on her pillow and within an hour she was dead.

Rick was so great and took her to my aunts to place her next to Delilah and Bella (my other dog and my mom's dog). He buried her with my Winnie-the-Pooh baby blanket. It was the blanket that she had slept on for years. The next day I left my mom's and came back home. It is not easy not having her around anymore. I keep looking for her and calling her name out of habit. I am constantly calling Lily, Chrissy.

Well to the best damned dog I have ever had. I will post a picture of her later or you can go to my myspace page and look under my albums called my dogs.