We Miss Our Friend.

We said goodbye to Ruggie on Friday. It has been rough. It was sad to see his body fail him and watch him in so much pain, but it gave us a chance to spoil him in his last days and tell him how loved he was. It was bittersweet. In the end, he left this earth in his home being hugged and told how good of a boy he was. It has been hard doing things for the first time without our dog. Everything reminds us of him (and it doesn't help that J-boo keeps calling for "doggie"). The house is quieter. It seems colder. Nothing is the same. It seems like the little things are hardest (cleaning up after the girls eat and not having him bark at the doorbell). We miss our dog.

The whole family spent his last night sleeping like "a pack" in our room. And we did it all weekend too. We have spent a lot of time talking about our favorite Rugen memories -- playing in the snow in Brighton, eating batteries in Howell, trying to tell us that Brain escaped (twice), going to the Christmas tree farm and the apple orchard, chasing bunnies, trapping the chipmunk in Brighton, running circles around the apartment in Ann Arbor, rollerblading with K in Howell, when the humane society said he would only be 40 pounds, when I taught him to roll over (for like 6 months), our daily walks, eating loaves of bread and thinking he got away with it until we found the bag ties, how much he loved to cuddle (and how he never figured out he was 100 pounds), when we put candy canes on the tree and he ate each one that wasn't five feet off the ground, when we had to lie about where we lived to take him from the humane society (but the hospital never asked before we took home our babies), when we lied about his weight at Howell and made excuses to avoid having his picture taken, when he warned us about the skunk, and when he was sprayed by a skunk years later, how much he used to hate having his nails cut and the ingenious (and embarrassing) things we did to try and cut them, when he would get locked in the bathroom, when he would stick his head out of the kitty door, but most of all we remember how awesome he was with the girls.             

The girls were so sweet with him the last few weeks. They brought him countless treats and gave him lots of attention. When he stopped eating his food and his bowl was full all day J-boo even started bringing him his food by the handful. Leah seems to be taking it much better than we are. She talks about Ruggie being in "Doggie Heaven" and asks how he can see us through the clouds, but otherwise she seems to be unaffected. It makes us sad that she might not remember what a good dog he was to her, but we will always remember how he was with the girls.    

We miss our dog. We miss our friend. We will never forget him and hope he is chasing bunnies in Doggy Heaven. He was such a good, good boy.

R.I.P. Rugen (April 2003 to November 22, 2013)