It Takes Time

On February 1st we lost our beloved Lab, Dana, and it has taken me this long to write about her and really look at her pictures.

A little story of Dana.....she came to us by way of Delta Airlines from Colorado in January, 2000.  When I saw her I immediately fell in love with her.  She came from a recommended breeder of Labs and her hips were guaranteed to be free of problems.  When she was about 4 months old we found out she had bad hips. Of course we contacted the breeder and he said we could send her back but we knew what would happen if we did, so Jack found an orthopedic vet in Charleston (where we lived at the time) to perform the surgeries on her hips.  The surgeries were successful!

In 2001 Jack and I started traveling the country in our RV and Dana was there for every mile.  She traveled from Key West, Florida to Fairbanks, Alaska.  In fact she traveled the Alaska Highway three times with us.

Dana knew when the weather was cooling off and it was time to go pheasant hunting in North Dakota, she just knew, and would get so excited.

There wasn't a person she didn't like, a stick she didn't want to pick up and have you throw so she could pick it up again.

Her hip surgeries weren't the last surgeries she would have.....a tooth extraction in Reno, NV, cancer removed in Pagosa Springs, CO and knee surgery at The Ohio State University Vet School.  Jack claims he has more money in Dana than he paid for his first house.

In May, 2012 Dana had a neurological episode and we rushed her to the vet, what we were told wasn't good so we decided it was her time to go.  Neither of us could stay with her, we just couldn't.  When we returned home the vet called and said she had recovered so we rushed back and picked her up.  On Friday she had another episode and we knew she wouldn't recover this time.  In the eight months between episodes we could see she was aging fast and we felt blessed we could spend more time with her in our lives.

I stayed with her until the very end.  Jack stayed as long as he could and I respect that.  I told Jack she looked like she was finally pain free.