Always in my heart

I cannot believe how the events of the last few days have played out.  I am at the moment, sitting in Nashville, TN with a few moments to spare, a nice breather from our non stop trip.  This past Friday our little Jack Russell; Jessie who was a wonderful 15.5 years took a turn for the worst.  For almost a year our little nugget has struggled with Dementia; a disease that has never before struck our home and I frankly hope that I never see it again.

Dementia left our little robust, spitfire girl with little more than a desire to circle.  What she did have as far as memories were from long ago, set in stone type memories.  Feeding time, or the meaning of a leash and that is about it.  With our essential relocation Jessie became much worse; her world as she knew it was now gone.  As my son and I traveled across the country we could see her growing worse by the day, so bad that the decision became essential.

No one ever wants to make this sort of decision; taking away the life that you have nurtured for over 15 years is not an easy thing to do.  What needs to be done is for the human to step back and look at life from the canines point of view.  There was no question, it was time.

I thought that it might be easier this time, she's been failing for a while.  It is never easy; with the decision made I came unglued the moment I walked into the vet.  I held her tight in my arms, whispering to her how special she was and what an amazing life we'd had together.  I held her close, I kissed her head and breathed in her scent, stinking as it was.

In the 15.5 years of Jessie's life she did a great deal of teaching and making us laugh.  The tenacious little 15 pounder went down a hole after a ground hog, took on a Rottweiler and many

 several big and scary dogs, fell 30 feet out of a tree chasing a squirrel and kept on going and leaped high to grab a bird in mid flight, swallowing it down.  A girly girl she was not.  Always ready for a rumble she ran this pack as the "top dog" for over 14 years.   

The vet came in and was wonderful; but it doesn't help.  Jessie left this world wrapped tightly in my arms.  She remained there long after she was gone, her confused circling now over.  Her struggles with the unknown were now gone and she was free to run and chase whatever her hearts desire.  Our little girl is gone, never forgotten and always in my heart.