Sweet Sophie

The worst part of having a pet, by far, is saying goodbye.

We had to say goodbye to one of our most cherished pets last night.

To make matters worse, we were completely blindsided. We had just returned from vacation, and we were greeting all our dogs, when we realized our little Sophie Cakes was not among the horde. I sent someone outside to call her, and Daniel went into the Dining Room and Game Room to look for her.

He saw her lying next to the door in the Game Room, and thought she was asleep. He walked over to her, excited to say hello. He called her, and reached down to pet her and nudge her to wake, and realized she had died.

Needless to say, we were all traumatized, and what followed was much crying and questioning and hugging and comforting and more crying and more hugging and so much sadness.

Since we had someone coming over twice a day while we were away, and it didn't seem like she had been gone long, we think she had died earlier that day. By all appearances, she died in her sleep. There was no sign of struggle or trauma. Her belly was not enlarged and we saw no blood or evidence of anything out of the ordinary. Stroke? Aneurysm? Heart attack? We'll never know.

What we do know is that we are all left with an empty space that hurts.

We will miss her bat ears.

Her spins.

Her cuddliness.

Her couch potato ways.

Her silence.

Her big melty eyes that said so much.

Her trust in us.







For those of you not familiar with her story, you can read about her here.

But in a nutshell, we got her from the shelter about 5 1/2 years ago. We were told that they had tracked down her previous owners, but they didn't want her back because she was always running away. Well, judging by the scars all over her head, we think we had a pretty good understanding of why she ran away.

She took to each and every one of us right away, and was content to stay with us. She formed a strong bond with James, and went up to his room every night to sleep cuddled up next to him. Silent, and with a history of trauma, they had much in common.



I'm glad to know that the bulk of her life was happy, and that she was loved and cherished.

But we will miss her.



So, so much....