A tribute to a very good dog...

Ok, it may seem really odd and ridiculous that I am giving tribute to a dog, but really..... A family pet? Man's best friend? Where can you go wrong?  Seriously, though, this is a tribute and goodbye to a very good dog.  Our family dog, Lady. Why did we call her that?  Well, we had a dog named Tramp. Need I say more? =D

Many of you may have seen pictures of Lady floating around on my blog here, or my Mom's blog, or my Sister's blog.  In any case, you probably know who she is since I have more than likely mentioned her on here before.  Actually, I should back up and say... Y'all should know her since I posted about her puppies! ha. Ok, there we go.

We got Lady from a lady (not the same lady) who rescued dogs off the streets and whatnot.  She was just a puppy at the time, and very adorable.  I held her in the car while we drove home and well... let's just say she got car sick and my coat was not any better for it. ;-)

We brought her home and she settled in.  She absolutely LOVED it out on the ranch! If there was one thing she enjoyed it was running after the pickup truck, chasing antelope, and running coyotes off the place....... in her dreams.  She was actually a rather sedate dog and didn't like running around too much. ;-)

She was a rather funny little dog... amazingly sweet and docile, didn't mind little kids hanging on her or using her as a pillow... and she loved to pose for the camera! If you don't believe, just take a look at the pics below....

(That ^ Is her 'romantic' look....) 

(^She heard mom say 'all the lovely ladies in for a picture!'...)

(^Wasn't she just adorable? Who could resist those eyes?) 

Almost two years ago, she got pregnant and had her one little puppy, Dottie.  A month or so later, as most of you know, Little Dottie died.  She was a pretty special little pup, I mean, since she got all the attention (and milk) to herself.  So, imagine our surprise when just 5 weeks ago, Lady had her second batch of pups and had 11.

She was an extremely good mama to them.  Amazingly, all of them survived and had enough milk to make them strong and healthy.

Just two days ago, Lady was looking rather droopy.  Then, an hour later she could barely stand.  Her condition got worse and worse until we figured she would die at any moment.  We did everything we could to save her... then, she started getting better.  She was even able to stand, although rather woozily, to get water.  We were all very thankful that she was going to live!  But, Friday morning, she was worse and then died.  It was extremely sad, as many of you may know.  Losing a family pet of any kind that you have poured your love into is really tough.

(^Don't really know what that look is saying...) 

(^Hangin' out with friends.. yes, she loved the cats!! and the cats loved her..) 

Even though she had her real puppies, we were her 'puppies', too, and she took care of us kids.  If we ever went on a walk, she was right there with us (even in her last days of pregnancy when she didn't really want to move), if we went on the ranch, she'd hop in the back and ride along with us.  Any where we kids went, she went too.

(^That day was particularly cold, so we let her have a blanket.  Yes, yes, we pampered were very kind to her)

She was a very good dog and I know we'll all miss her.