Veva

On Thursday September 22, we lost our best friend Veva.  Veva lived a few weeks past her thirteenth birthday; her aging body just got the best of her.  If you ever got to meet Veva you knew that she was something special.  She was a beautiful yellow lab that came from a very strong and talented family and brought so much joy into our family.  Sorry I didn't write this right away but losing her has been a lot harder than I ever thought it would be, yes partly because I am loaded with pregnancy hormones but also because of the huge part of my heart that I had for her. 

Here's a brief story of how she came into our life and how she made it wonderful. 

About fourteen years ago I wanted one thing and one thing only, a dog.  What kid doesn't want a dog??  I begged and begged for my parents to get one and since my brother was around the age of five it was easy to get him on the "Can we get a dog?!?!" bandwagon.  My parents seemed reluctant to the idea, like any parent should, what if I lost interest after a week and then they had to do everything, did I really know how much work it would be?  It seemed like we were begging forever but I know now after getting my own dog with Mike it is a very big decision.  My parents would often dog sit for friends and my brother and I were told that if we wanted a dog we had to prove that we could help with dog sitting duties and did we ever.  The next stipulation was I had to find a breeder and do all the necessary research.  We decided that we wanted to get a Lab, a yellow lab to be specific.  I got dog magazines, looked in the paper and called many places.  Then we a found a breeder near Lindsay that had puppies on the way.  My mom and I went to visit shortly after the puppies were born and confirmed that we did want one once they were ready to leave their mother.  I couldn't believe it, we were getting a dog, and I was so excited.  We got everything we needed, food, collar, leash, crate... awaiting the day that we could bring our puppy home.  Once the puppies were six weeks old we went to pick out our female.  Have you ever heard that puppies chose their owners?  Well when we went to "pick" our pup, we were walking into the breeders yard and this cute little female came running to us, my brother sat down and she jumped all over him.  Yes, Veva choose us.  On the way home in the car we put her in a crate, we wanted to do everything right with this puppy but the breeder lived pretty far from our house and the crying was getting to be much, so we opened the crate and she sat with my bother and I all the way home.  From that point on the four of us had a new best friend, a new member of our family.

Veva went on adventures with us, protected us and was there by our side through many many things.  For everything that Veva gave to us we gave back to her.  She was so lucky to live at my parent's house, there was a large yard for her to run in, a pond and a river to swim in and a forest for her to explore in.  Veva was still a young pup until she was at least the age of eight; she was very active and attentive.  This and the constant attention that she received from my family is why she lived as long as she lived.  Once Veva started to age my mom started to make her food, she would give her different food depending on how she was feeling or acting.  My mom made feeding and medication schedules for everyone to follow depending on who was home.  Thank you mom for everything you did for Veva. Thank you also Dad and Ryan for taking care of Veva, like I said before she was a best friend to all of us. 

Mike and I brought Baxter into Veva's life at a late age; she often wanted to play with him but really didn't have the energy or knew she couldn't keep up with him like she would have been able to years earlier.  They would go outside for walks around the yard together, well actually Veva would walk and Baxter would run circles around her and the yard and re-smell everything she smelt.  Baxter is always ready to play, his favourite thing to do is play with other dogs so he would sometimes try to get Veva going but she would put him in his place.  Veva was the only dog that could control Baxter, one growl, one snap and he knew she was in charge (sometimes she was better than me at disciplining him).  Baxter knew who she was to him, the first time they met was one week after we brought him home and he tried to drink milk from her, she was the "mom" dog.  Whenever we would take Baxter to my parent's house we would say "Baxter do you want to go to Veva's house?" and he would bolt for the door.  He's defiantly going to miss her.

Here are some pictures of our Veva.

The impact that an animal can have on your life is amazing, no one can understand the bond until they have experienced it for themselves. Dogs are incredible beings and everyone should experience them.  My sadness for the loss of my "first" dog is because of how large the bond the two of us had.  Even on her last day she wagged her tail the minute she saw me, I'm very grateful that I was able to say goodbye and rub her belly one last time. Even though I moved away from home she was always excited to see me, get attention from me and show me that she loved me.  She had the same love for Mike, often going right from me to Mike for his affection. 

Veva I will never forget you, thank you for all the happiness you have brought to my life.