It’s been a while and I have started a few entries but then could not find cohesiveness in what I wanted to say so I just stopped. Saturday changed that. Saturday will now be one of “those days” and is added to the list of dates that I HATE. On Saturday, we lost Our Sweet Girl. Our Fluff. Our Muppet. I know some know the story of Andi but many do not so that is what I will do today. I will tell the story of Andi. The dog with a middle name. The dog with theme songs. The dog who I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was a dog because in her world as well as ours, she really wasn’t.

Andi was born on September 23, 2010 and came home to us on April 15, 2011. She was the runt of her litter. She was the last one left. I now refer to all those people that passed her up as complete assholes because there is not a chance that her siblings were anything like her. Not a chance they were as sweet as her and as loving as her and as smart as her and as pretty as her and…well, you get the idea.

Our reason for getting Andi is a pretty funny one. In May, 2010, I get a call from Jeffrey who was away for his first year of college. “Mom, I’m getting a puppy.” Of course my response was something along the lines of, “What????” He proceeds to tell me the story of these dogs that need homes and how he has promised to take one. My next response was, “Well you are telling your Dad and if he says anything to me, I am playing dumb.” A few days later, I get a call from Jeff from work. “Did you know about this dog????” and my response was, “What dog????” He then goes on to rant and rant and rant about how Jeffrey can’t take care of himself let alone a puppy and how he was going to have to take care of this dog and on and on and on. The next day, Jeff was in the car to pick up Jeffrey and the puppy! I am sure that during that 4 hour drive, Jeff thought of many ways to make our family of five into a family of four. He arrived in Morgantown safely. How did I know? The first thing I received was a photo of Augie (a girl dog with a boy’s name – I guess that was a thing for our family). I texted Jeffrey and said, “You’re safe. He loves her already.” I later received a photo of her sleeping in the car on the way home. Her little body with her big puppy belly, sound asleep. It only took her a second and she stole his heart!

Augie is now home and so am I since it is the summer. Augie becomes my buddy. She is by my side almost all the time and she is a good girl. Yes, she is a puppy but she is still a good girl. Then it comes time for Jeffrey to leave for his second year of college and Augie is going with him. The riot acts are read….do not let people do anything to her or I will come get her. Augie is about to go to the #1 party school in the US and I have a slew of things running through my head that a bunch of drunk college students could do to her. They pack up to leave and I am a blubbering idiot. Not because my son is leaving but because my granddogter is. I would check on her constantly. I would walk around the house crying. I obviously drove Jeff crazy enough that he decided I needed a dog! As he did with every decision, he researched and researched and researched and he found HER!!! Her name that the breeder gave her was Amanda but I knew (even though my kids didn’t like it) she was going to be Andi. Her middle name, Grace, came to be because she had none. She would fall and flop all over the place so I decided the only way she would have grace was to have it as a name and there she was Andi Grace also know as Andi Girl or Gracie or Fluff or Muppet or…..yes, she had many names and they were all perfect just like her. She was perfect.

Andi had these eyes. Soulful eyes. Eyes that gave you comfort. Eyes that understood. Eyes that could tell you a whole story and you understood. Eyes that showed you just how much she loved you. She was a snuggler. Every morning, I would tell her it was time for “morning snugs” and she would come up to me and spoon. That is something she did until it became too hard for her to get up on the bed. She was pushy with her paw and nose. If Andi wanted you to pet her, she let you know and you did it! That nose could open doors like a champ but could also push a basketball around our swimming pool for hours of entertainment. Andi was a girl unlike any other girl I will ever know.

Doodles on average live 12 years. My girl was over 15 1/2 years on Saturday. I was blessed to have had the time with her let alone the “extra” time. I would say, “I know I’m on borrowed time.” but I never wanted it to end. I just wanted to keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing. I would tell people that I still had her because Jeff told them ‘up there’ to let me keep her because they really didn’t want so see or hear what was going to happen when she left. Well, they decided they didn’t care anymore and they needed her. I am happy that Jeff has her again but to be honest with you, I am not happy at the same time. For him to have her, I couldn’t anymore. My Sweet Girl who has gotten me through so much bullshit is not here to get me through the bullshit of not having her! I see that as ironic. The time you need them the absolute most is the time they are not here because what you need them to get you through is them not being here……. In time, I will do what I did with my loss of Jeff and then the loss of Dad. I will learn to be happy that I had what I had rather than be sad over what I was no longer going to have but right now, I’m just sad. I look for her in the places she would be. I go to get three treats because that’s what I have been doing for almost 10 years. I listen to hear her paws coming down the hallway. I look around the yard waiting to see her sniffing around. 15 years, 1 month, and 1 day of loving her was a good run but I wanted more. Rest well my Sweet Girl. You were so loved.