Goodbye Shelby, the WonderMutt

Yesterday was a hard day.  We had to say goodbye to our sweet dog, Shelby.

I've posted several times about our genial, but less-than-energetic family pet.  You can read those here, here, here, here and here.

I've obviously been a little critical of our little mutt.  Okay, more than a little.  Mostly because humor at her expense was so abundant and so dang easy.  But our easy, content, whiny dog had declining health (she was somewhere between 13-16 years old) and finally got to a place where we had to let her go.

She had a cough that wouldn't go away, had seizures, she could barely see, could hear only really loud noises (which was kind of nice, because she no longer barked like a mad woman when the doorbell rang), had such stiff, sore hips that she would sometimes fall over just walking through the house - or even standing still.  She couldn't make it up the steps most of the time, and was even losing her sense of smell.  So we put her out of her misery and sent her to the carpeted home in the sky, with never-ending and never-fattening dog treats always at the ready.

Through all of it, she was a good pup.  We adopted her from a rescue shelter, and didn't know for sure what we were getting, but she was always good with our girls, and became an integral (if comic) part of our family.  She never nipped at us, was always glad to see us, and even if she wasn't the most energetic of canines, she was loyal and she made us laugh.

Farewell Shelby.  We already miss your clicking toenails on our wood floor.