A year ago Jamie and I went on a trip and I bought a beautiful necklace with a heart pendant on it.  A few months ago Jamie asked me where it was and I told him I had absolutely no idea.  I hadn't seen it in over a year.  No sign of it, I was sure it was lost forever.  Then yesterday while I was sobbing over Trixie, Jamie threw something in the trashcan and missed.  He moved the trashcan to pick it up and there was the necklace, with the heart pendant on it.  I know we've moved that trashcan at least 100 times in the last year.  Jamie handed it to me and I said, "Trixie sent me her heart."  Jamie agreed that she wanted me to know that she's okay.  It was so strange to find it yesterday, but not anytime over the last year.  I really really hope she is okay.

I hope this gets easier soon because my eyes cannot handle any more tears and my heart is hurting.  Everything around the house reminds me of her, even the silence, because I know with her running around, the house would not be silent.  Why, why, why would a dog of only six years old be gone already?  :(

 

 

 I just keep repeating the same things over and over and over again.  I get nowhere, so why do I keep putting myself through it?  I thought I'd attempt to write it down in hopes that I don't overanalyze everything for weeks to come.

I wish I had been with Trixie when she died so she wouldn't have been alone.

I wish I could understand how a perfectly healthy six year old dog dies.

I wish I knew that she was okay when she died.

I wish I knew that she didn't know.

I wish I knew that she wasn't in pain.

I wish I knew that she knows I love her.

I wish we had gotten the chance to say goodbye.

I wish I had gotten up six times during the night like normal, maybe, maybe I would have found her and we could have saved her.

I wish I could unerstand how she could be gone - just completely gone - at six measely years old (yes, this is a repeat, it's one of the biggest ones to me.  I do not understand!)

I wish she had gotten to gradute from dog training (crying now) she worked so hard and was getting so good!  She deserved to see her graduation day at the very least.

I wish I could understand how God or whoever thought that they needed her more than me and Jamie.

I wish she was still here.

I wish we had gotten in the habit of letting her sleep with us - maybe we would have known?  Maybe we could have gotten her to the Pet ER and saved her.

I wish I knew that she was okay now.

I wish I knew that she was safe.

I wish I knew that I would see her again.

Above all, I am so incredibly angry!  How can God (or whoever you choose to believe in) take my dog away from us when we still needed her?  She was young, she was healthy, she wasn't a perfect dog, but she was working so hard and was getting better.  She was fun, energetic, happy, so full of energy and happiness.  Knowing that I'll never let her outside again is hard.  Knowing that on Thursday she will not be graduating dog training and getting her picture taken with all the other dogs is HARD.  I am so angry that someone chose to take our dog away from us when we were not done with her!  I just don't understand.  Someone please, please make me understand before I completely lose my mind.  This pain is so surreal I just cannot accept that she is gone.  She was in perfect health.  How does this happen?!!!

 

Trixie girl, I miss you so much.  I am having such a hard time letting you go.  I guess because you were lost so suddenly and unexpectedly.  I cannot fathom not having you around anymore so my brain refuses to accept that you're gone.  I keep looking at your bed hoping I've just been having a bad dream.  Why won't I wake up?  :(

Everyday when I wake up and that split second hits where I realize for the first time that day that you are no longer with us, the day already sucks.  I can't go down in the basement because I think of you.  I can't go out in the backyard because I think of you.  I try to stay out of the dog room as much as possible because your bed is in there so empty.  I wish I could move on.  I wish I could stop crying, but until I can understand that you're really gone, I won't be able to.  I miss you so much and I hate not having you around.  Our house is so quiet without you.

Trixie, we were so proud of you girl.  You came into our house as a mis behaved dog who barked constantly and was never shown enough love.  But you left us as a quiet, "not perfect, but getting there" dog.  You finally stopped barking at every single little thing and became almost the ideal dog.  You worked so hard on dog training, and you were excellent.  You were great with "sit" and "stay" and "down".  (You finally conquered "down" and we are still so proud of you for that!!)  You were getting better on "come", but you never did like "look".  :)  Though I have no doubt that if you had been given more time, you would have done great at that just like all the others.  You were getting wonderful at "relax".  Never having seen you just lay down outside and relax, we were so incredibly proud of you.  We miss you so much Trixie.  I love you, I hope you know that.  And I hope you know how proud of you we are.  I'm sorry you never got to graduate from your class, but I will certainly be thinking of you tomorrow.  Right behind Luca, you were the best dog in the class because you tried so hard.  And above that, you were even better than Luca at some commands.  I wish I could see you again, hold you again, kiss you again, pet you again, chase you again, train you again, feed you again.  God help me, I don't know that I can make it through your sudden death alone.  I am so sad.  I'm not sure I'm strong enough to handle this.

 

 

Trixie was the oldest dog in the class at six years, and we thought she'd be a lot harder to train than the others, who were all under a year I believe, but out of five dogs in the class, she was second best on almost all commands, and first best on certain other ones.  She did a wonderful job and we were so proud of her.  We are still going to dog training tonight and I hope I'm strong enough to watch all the others graduate.  If not, we will just present them with a picture and ask them to put it on the wall.

We planted a memorial garden today for her in her favorite spot in the back yard.

She's in my heart today.  I miss her.

 

Trixie was a trip.  She was an energetic dog who constantly wanted to run.  When Jamie moved in with me we didn't have room for her, so she stayed at his moms house.  His mom couldn't handle her energy, so she was caged every night and leashed up outside everyday.  I felt so bad for dear Trixie and would go over during the day to make sure she had water and to play with her.  I insisted that we get a privacy fence installed soon so Trixie could have a real life.  This was just last year (she only lived with me for one little year) and that's what we did.  Jamie and I worked and sweated our butts off to create a place for Trixie to run.  We have a large backyard and Jamie set up a runner for her because she was such a great jumper he was afraid she'd jump over the six foot high fence.  That only lasted a few days before we trusted her enough to let her off the runner.  She then had the run of the backyard.  She was truly a great jumper though.  The best I've ever seen.  She got five feet up on our six foot privacy fence, and I have no doubt that if she would have learned to push off of the fence to catapault herself over the side, she would have.  It wasn't uncommon to look outside and see her jumping over and over and over again trying to get over the fence.

After she had such a great place to run, her energy level, while it never left, did get depleted each day, and it became the norm to go outside and see her laying peacefully on the porch or in the grass.  :)  Jamie was shocked when this first happened, as he said he never expected to see her so peaceful, while I had been telling him all along that she needed to be able to run.

She was a tease to say the least, but was such a happy dog.  In every picture we have of her she has a smile on her face.  I'd go outside to play with her and we'd play chase.  Mostly I'd chase her.  I didn't figure out until the night before we lost her, that she would chase me too if I wanted her too.  I wish I had known that earlier.  Anyway, she was much too fast for me, so I could never catch her.  Most times I would give a half hearted attempt at catching her and then stop and watch her run the whole backyard with that huge smile on her face and her tongue hanging out.  Soon she started teasing me.  She would run towards me and towards me and towards me and then just when I thought *this* would be the time that I'd catch her she'd dart in a different direction at the last minute and run right past me at lightning speed with that smile on her face like she was laughing at me.  Tongue still hanging out.  :)  This became part of our game.

When Jamie wasn't home, I tried to get her to sleep with me as I felt safer.  She would not.  She'd get on our bed sometimes, but wouldn't stay.  She prefered her bed.  There is one picture I have of her sleeping on my side on the bed on a night when Jamie wasn't home, but that wasn't the norm.  She wasn't much for getting up on the bed.

She had a short attention span and would get bored with things quickly.

We buried at least five birds in our backyard that we suspect she killed.  She loved to chase things.  I have no doubt that the squirrels that ran along the telephone lines that cross our fence just did that daily to tease her.  She waited for those squirrels and tried all the time to reach them.

She did not like toys.  I had a ball that she played with about two times.  We bought her a rope hoping she'd tug at it with us or chase it.  She did, but very rarely.  Her toys are still sitting in the backyard completely untouched.  They've been in the same spot for months.  She did not care about them.  LOL.  When she started dog training classes, we took her down the toy aisle and let her pick out a toy.  She only liked one.  Just one!  It was a pink sheep with silky fur and a squeaker inside.  She didn't like the blue sheep or the yellow sheep - only the pink one.  We bought it for her.  It wasn't uncommon to hear that sheep squeaking after we had put her to bed.  She liked to lick the fur and also to grab him by his belly and shake her head back and forth as if she had caught her prey.  :)  I'm so sad that she only had eight weeks with a toy that she truly liked.

I often complained about Trixie barking.  She'd bark at absolutely everything and when I went outside to investigate and to tell her everything was okay, she'd bark again as soon as I went back inside.  We were trying to figure out how to get her to stop barking at every little thing when she gradually stopped on her own.  When I hear other dogs barking now, I wish it was her.

She created a path in our backyard where no grass would grow because she was always running over it.  :)  I had just told her the night before we lost her that we would never have grass grow in our dirt paths because she wouldn't allow it.  Now the grass is growing and it's breaking my heart.  I want to go out there and pull it all up.

We couldn't put flowers out back in the yard because we knew she'd trample them.  We could only put them along the house.  She considered the backyard hers and anything put back there had to be approved by her.  LOL.

She would eat her food one piece at a time.  Literally.  She wouldn't settle in for a long meal, she'd run around outside and then run to the porch and grab a piece of food.  One piece.  Then she'd run around burning off those calories.  Then she'd go back and grab one piece of food.  Then she'd run around and burn that off.  I joked to Jamie that she would never gain any weight because she watched her figure so closely.  She insisted on burning off the calories as soon as they entered her body.  :)

She took over the chair in the living room as her own.  When she'd come inside she'd run right for the chair and settle in.  She didn't even consider that someone else might want to lay there.  She considered it hers. 

She thought our cats were prey when she first moved in.  For that reason most of them hated her.  The kitten, Rolley, was the only one who ever got close to Trixie.  They'd play with each other and Rolley would let Trixie bathe him and lick his face.  My mom tells me that when she'd let Rolley out on the deck he'd run to the end, look over and meow and Trixie would come running and look up at him.  She said now when she lets Rolley out, he runs over to end, and meows and continues to meow over and over louder and louder, but Trixie never shows up.

 

 

Her ashes finally returned and we picked them up tonight.  Jamie and I got really emotional when we got her little box back.  :(  I miss that dog so much.  I miss seeing her smiling face and I miss running around in the back yard with her. 

 

 

 

for the thoughtful sympathy cards sent to us in the loss of our beautiful, wonderful Trixie.  You guys will never know how much that meant to both me and Jamie.  We are creating a wall collage in her memory where the cards will be hung up and displayed with her picture and her Dog Training Graduation Diploma.