In the world of dogs, there are dogs and then there are the best dogs. Lucy was that – beautiful, calm, smart – she loved her people and she greeted everyone who came to the farm. She even looked like she was smiling in every photo we have of her.
After 16 years, it’s been a tough couple of weeks getting used to a new routine around here. If you took out the trash or went to the barn to do chores, she was always by your side. In the evening when we ate dinner, she ate too and then lounged in the kitchen on her little bed.
At night she liked to sleep in the garage so every morning we let her out with an opener we kept in the house. She’d come right to the door and stand by her bowl to eat breakfast. But recently, her exit from the garage was getting slower and slower, and sometimes we had to help her get up.
We made a touch decision to do the humane thing on April 29. She was having a lot of trouble breathing when she walked and she couldn’t manage the deck steps. One of her hard belly lumps was back and we didn’t want to put her through surgery again. She was a doggy breast cancer survivor (three times) and was down to just one left of eight! We always said she had nine lives and no matter what happened (including getting accidently locked inside a horse trailer for ten days) she managed to pull through. And she loved us unconditionally even when we dragged her to the vet.
She had three litters of wonderful puppies in her younger years. Somewhere she has 15 children and I know she actually outlived many of them. All the families who had her pups said they were the best dogs they ever had. Of course they were! They all came from Lucy.
We lost Lucy’s brother, Jack, last spring and that was hard enough. But Lucy was the real brains of the outfit and Jack just followed along. He was a good ole boy, but without Lucy, it really feels like a big gaping hole.
Poor little Gus is a lost too, but he’s getting better each day (although he is even more clingy with Dave). Now we have to decide if we want another dog or a couple of barn cats to keep the wild critters away. We’ll probably vote dog…
Hug your fur babies.
XOXO
Kauffman Family Farm 