Berry dog April 17, 1997-August 5, 2010

I guess I knew this day was coming. I guess I knew in my gut when she got sick that there was no getting well. I had hope but I knew the odds were stacked against us. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for this but I was wrong. I feel like someone has ripped my heart out and stomped on it a million times. I feel like I am slowly falling apart. My heart dog is gone and all I can do is cry. Why I am acting so selfishly? I keep telling myself that berry lived a great life with me and she always got the best of what I could give her. I keep telling myself that she is in a better place and is whole again with no bum knee and no rules. She can be the fun police all she wants to and chase all the horses she wants to without me yelling at her, but for some reason, I still cry. I mourn for my baby, my sweet, sweet berry dog. I want this pain to lessen but I know time is the only healer. I have had tons of emails and FB posts and they all help me but this flat out plain sucks. I tried to sleep last night but every time I closed my eyes, I saw that look on her face as the medicine acted on her body. I wanted to be so calm so that her passing was smooth and not stressful for her but I am afraid that the last thing she saw was me freaking out and sobbing. Barb, my best friend in the whole world was there with me as was my favorite vet and vet tech, but it didn't matter. As she left this world, she took a huge hunk of my heart with her and it hurts like hell.

I have been trying to think of all the good times this morning and the things I will miss and wanted to share some of those funny stories here. I think blogging and talking to people is how I deal the best with tough situations so there may be many blogs and posts until I can heal.



This was probably one of the funniest pictures I have of berry. I was living in CO at the time in a little one bedroom apartment working a job in Golden. This had been a very hard time for me with grad school ending after a very bad time with a very bad major professor in which I had basically given up getting my degree and left KSU and KS for that matter. Anyway, Tony was still in KS in electrical apprentice school and had one more year till he could transfer anywhere. He and the dogs were just hanging out till they could join me in CO. I was super lonely, knew no one there, traveled so I couldn't keep the dogs with me and for that matter, the apartment complex didn't even allow dogs anyway. Well, christmas time came that year and Tony and all three dogs came out to visit for a while. My mom, who always out does herself at christmas, had as usual done more than she should. Carebears had come back into style as they were when I was a kid and she had looked far and wide for me a grumpy bear. That was my favorite carebear for some reason growing up and I had had one for years. Well, as you can see from the picture, as soon as I unwrapped it, Berry was very interested in it so much so that we put it up really high so she couldn't interact with it while we were gone for the day. I still to this day don't know how she got it down with her bum knee, but when we got home, grumpy bear was missing his nose and stuffing had been surgically removed from his nose hole and from a hole in his butt. The other dogs did not posses surgical skills like berry as they would shred toys to bits so we knew it was her. We still wonder if she bribed harley and miller into getting that bear down for her to do surgery on. She looked so guilty and when I got this film developed, I had to laugh so hard at this picture! Do you think she looked guilty? I DO!


I had taught berry to wave as a trick. Berry was a very smart dog but at the time I got her, I knew nothing of dog training per se. We had been asked to be in a church play where we ran on the stage and the dogs did agility stuff and then we ran off. Unfortunatley, the dogs got freaked out by the circus music and the lights so we had to go to plan B. We all ran onto the stage and then I had berry sit and wave for a cookie because she would do anything for food. Berry always saved the day! This picture was taken at aussie nationals in St. Louis. I think my mom took them with her 35 mm camera and they all turned out so great. Berry was a very photogenic pup so I have tons of pictures of her. One of my favorites was taken by Mickey Rabeneck as a professional portrait. We have it in our hall way with the boy's photos under it. She is and always will be the alpha bitch in our household and I will so miss her bossiness and her cheerleading.

I love this picture too. Berry loved frisbees and agility more than anything. Okay well maybe chasing horses too.

Okay for whatever reason this one won't load in correctly but I love it so I am not going to delete it. Tony could only come up once a month when I lived in CO so he would initially only bring one dog up at a time. The first time he came up, he asked what dog I wanted to see first and of course it was my berry dog. We went up into the mountains and did all the typical CO things. This is at the Contenential Divide. The prairie dogs were driving her nuts.



Okay tired from crying and typing so taking a break. More to come after I rest. This truly is making me feel better. I will have to get some really old pics of her out and scan them in for sure now. They are classic and I want to share them. Going to try and get some sleep.