Settling In

Abby Stats: 8 months old

Abby is much more confident and comfortable in her new home. She loves going out in the back yard and playing with Samson (though he gets tired of her). She tries to play a lot with Lilly and Lola (a pair of boxer mixes) next door through the fence. She’s very good about going to the door when she wants out. Problem is, she’s not learned when it’s ok for her to go out, when it’s a bad time; she likes to wake us up in the middle of the night… that’s getting a little old.

Abby is left; Samson is right.

Ellie Remembered

Here's the shadowbox that I made and a memorial video as well.

Abby Meets the Fam

Abby Stats: 8 months old, 65 lbs.

Abby is already starting to act very comfortable in the house. Travis’ mom came over, but we did a poor job of introducing Abby to her, so Abby didn’t really want much to do with her. We did a better job when my mom and dad came over; we met them outside in the garage before they came inside and let them both give her a treat. She took to them very well. We’ll have to retry it with Travis’ mom the next time she and Jimmy come over.

A New Addition

Abby Stats: 8 months old, 65 lbs.

We adopted Abby, an 8 month old great pyrenees, today from a shelter in Alabama. She is pretty timid, but that is expected considering all the change she’s been through recently. She’s also very dirty, stinky, and her fur is matted. The vet says not to bathe her for 10 days because of her spay… She got a bath as soon as we got home. lol

Dealing with the Loss

The pain of losing Ellie is getting a little better for both of us. We're both dealing with it differently, but it’s still harder on Travis.

The day we found out, I made cookies just to get my mind off of what had happened for a little while; we took the cookies with us to give to the vet and vet staff when we went to talk to him about what had happened. But since then, I seem to be taking a fairly direct approach to mourning. Today I went to see Ellie’s grave; Mom has it set up very nicely with flowers and a couple chairs. I've also begun thinking of a little memorial shadowbox for Ellie that will hold her collar tag and a photo.

Travis on the other hand is fighting his impulse to replace things when they’re broken. He’s already looking at puppies. Though he knows it’s too soon, he also thinks it would help him to stop focusing on the loss of Ellie. We’ll see what happens…

Burial

Daddy buried Ellie with her collar and her tennis ball this morning.

Ellie's Gone

Ellie Stats: Deceased, not yet 1 year and 6 months old

• The vet called Travis and told him that Ellie passed away last night at around 8 o’clock. He said that after surgery she continued to vomit, and nothing they gave her would stop it. We are devastated not only because we've lost Ellie, but also because there is still no apparent cause for her illness and eventual death. It is very frustrating and difficult to deal with.
• We both left work for the day to mourn the death of our beloved Ellie.
• We decide to let the vet perform an autopsy in the hopes of finding something on the cellular level that could be the cause of all of this. I’m not sure when we’ll hear back about it.
• We decided to bury Ellie at my parents’ house.