Good-bye Sweet Chelsea....

Chelsea & Bailey...together forever.....

Today, we had to do the hardest thing any pet owner has to do....put our precious Chelsea to sleep. I've been crying all day. I had to have Hugh take her, because I just couldn't do it.

We moved into our house in May 1995. Our neighbor told us about a family whose Cocker Spaniel just had puppies that they were trying to sell. Hugh didn't grow up with dogs...but I did....so we decided to go "take a look" and maybe get one. They were four weeks old at the time. When we got to the house, we could hear all of the little puppy noises coming from their crate. We looked inside and the first puppy we saw was Chelsea. At the time, though, her name was Pontiac because the fur in between her eyes was colored like the Pontiac symbol. We loved her immediately. She was the first born on the litter. As we were holding her, and smelling her sweet puppy breath, we saw this little runt of a dog peek its head out from amongst the other puppies. She was lighter than the rest of the bunch, and definitely smaller. Hugh said "Why don't we get two??" I was fine with that!! So, we paid our money, made arrangements to pick up Chelsea Peas and Bailey Carrots the next week, and went home to prepare for our newest babies. And let me say, that they WERE my babies. I was in the third year of my infertility battle, and these two puppies were giving me something to nurture and love on. Hugh picked them up while I was out of town on a business trip. So, I came home to two balls of fur running around my brand new house. I loved it!!! I took them to work with me the first few weeks. After that, we bought a baby gate to keep them contained in the kitchen while we were gone. They eventually learned how to break through the baby gate. In the first few months of having them, they chewed up every rounded corner in the house, ate a couch cushion, chewed every corner of the brand new coffee table and armoire, peed and pooped everywhere, jumped in the large pots outside that we had trees planted in and we would find them in these pots covered in soil....so many bad puppy things. But, one look at me with those big brown eyes, and all was forgiven. They eventually learned how to behave. Bailey became the cuddler, and Chelsea totally took on her role as Bailey's big sister. They loved each other so much. In January of 2006, Bailey came down with a thyroid condition that was too far gone before we caught it. No medication seemed to help and she was miserable. So, we had her put to sleep on February 1 of that year. Chelsea missed her sister so much, but she became used to being the only dog. Then, in November of last year, we noticed that Chelsea was losing weight and was drinking a ton of water. We took her in and she had lost 7 of her 21 pounds in a matter of 6 weeks. Not good. The vet said she probably had some sort of metabolic condition like diabetes or renal failure, or possibly even cancer. They wanted to run $400 worth of tests on her but we decided not to because at her age, we weren't going to put her through the treatment for any of these conditions. We weren't going to prolong the inevitable. We decided to just watch her and when she showed signs of pain or any kind of misery, we would put her down. Well, in the last week, she has shown signs of hip pain by how she was walking. We would find her standing totally still staring into space at nothing like she was forgetting where she was. She was also becoming so weak that she was having trouble standing on the tile floor without slipping. So sad to watch. So we made the appointment for today, February 10. Hugh said she went very fast and seemed very peaceful. Caitlin said last night that she imagined that Jesus was going to call Doggie Heaven and ask to speak to Bailey. He was going to tell Bailey that Chelsea was coming home. And when they met again, they would run all around the big grassy hills of Doggie Heaven and be so happy that they were together again. I loved her idea of that, so that's what I'm thinking too. It makes it a tad easier to handle.

Weren't they the cutest??

Don't tell Hugh that I used to let them sleep on our bed.

Bailey the cuddler

This was Chelsea yesterday. She kept looking at

me with eyes that said "I don't want to be here

anymore". So sad.

Peaceful.