Sugar (sad goodbye)

This is Sugar. 

Ten years ago, she came home with us.

Sugar was adopted from the animal shelter.  She had been found running loose in a sketchy part of town.  She gave birth to a litter of pups in the shelter.  All the puppies were adopted, but no one wanted the mom.

I took the girls to the shelter when we were looking for a dog to adopt.  When we walked into the kennels we were deafened by the cacophony of barking dogs - except for Sugar.  She wagged her tail at us and smiled.

We went home to think about things.  I couldn't get Sugar out of my mind.  All weekend I was worried that someone else would adopt her. 

We went back to visit her again, and decided to adopt her.  The kennel attendant put her in a holding area which had a 2 metre high fence.  As we walked away, we heard a funny noise....when we turned to see what had happened, we saw that Sugar had jumped to the top of the fence and was dangling there.  The kennel attendant wasn't happy - now she had to get Sugar down.

We proceeded to the front desk to pay for her microchip and license fees.  An older attendant moseyed up and took a long look at us.  He asked if we knew what we were getting into.  That should have been my first inkling that life with Sugar wouldn't be easy, but it was filled with lots of happy moments.

Moments like when we'd go for walks, and Sugar would happily bound along, wagging her tail.  Moments like when a bear cub would venture onto our country property - Sugar loved chasing bear cubs!!  Don't worry - no bear cubs were hurt, just slightly traumatized.

Sugar struggled with being a good dog.  She like to dig inconveniently large holes in our front yard.  She was obsessed with our neighbour's pedigree chickens. She couldn't be trusted around human food. And she figured out how to get into the garbage can.  Sometimes the kids and I would return home to find gnaw marks on our possessions, dog hair where it shouldn't be and a suspiciously innocent-looking Sugar.  That's OK Sugar, those gnaw marks look good on our antique dresser, they remind us of you.

Sugar's health started declining several years ago.  When I took her to the vet, Sugar refused to allow the stethoscope anywhere near her.  Sugar didn't mind the vet, but if anything resembling a medical appliance came close to her - she squirmed away.  

One morning Sugar looked at me - and I saw she wasn't well. I made the difficult decision and we took one last drive together.

You were a good companion Sugar.