Lemony

 My sweet girl passed away last evening.

Things went downhill quite quickly and before we knew it she was gone. My mother always wonders why I get a dog and get so attached to it only to have to say a very hard goodbye. My answer to that is simply they bring so much joy to life. Dog owners understand.

Lemony had lots of nicknames and titles. My stepdad taught me many years ago that nicknames were signs of affection. Lemony had many.

My favorite was Lemon Bucket. Lindsay dubbed her that and other than just plain Lemon that was the one I used the most.

She was LemonLee (she shared a birthday with Robert E. Lee)

Princess, because she was truly one...but she graduated to ...

Queenie.

Then titles such as 

Miss America - I used to sing the theme song to her and 

Miss Congeniality  - I am sure the neighborhood would agree and she will be missed as the news travels down the street.

She could have easily been a therapy dog.

Lemony was the Golden Retriever I didn't know I needed. I never had dogs growing up and so when Jeff said we would have dogs, he asked what kind did I like. I wanted a Springer Spaniel like Spot from the Dick and Jane books. I had never forgotten those pictures from first grade of Spot. 

We were on our third Springer of our married life, when Paul Allen decided that he wanted a Golden. I promptly said no. He was persistent even coming home from school with a newspaper clipping of Golden puppies in town. A classmate of his had a Golden and he had fallen in love with the dog. 

He convinced his dad to go look and he said Lemony picked him out because he went wanting a boy, but picked out a girl.

  You never go look at puppies and think you are going to walk away without one.

So weeks later Lemony came to live with us and she captured my heart. I never had to train her to do anything. She house trained herself along with all good manners and commands.

She was the cutest little puppy. 

When she was about 10 months old we quickly learned how much taller the reach of a Golden was over that of a Springer when she got the Gorilla Glue down off the kitchen island. She only had a small amount and thankfully the information on the Internet and  the fact that she is a larger breed of dog , she was taken to our vet who saved her life with surgery. He removed a  large chicken breast sized Gorilla Glue sponge in her stomach.

Everyone was praying for her. She had already stolen the hearts of everyone she met.

She came out of it just fine and we determined she had a stomach of steel, plus an amazing vet.

She loved everyone and would walk down the street just hoping to see people. She would look at any house where someone she knew lived and bark at the end of their driveway as if to say, "Hey, I am here in case you want to come out and pet me."

She learned which houses gave treats or good rub downs and in her younger days would escape to go visit. 

She was just as good with the other dogs. All other dogs seemed to love her. The granddogs are going to wonder what happened.

She loved chasing a tennis ball up until we just quit throwing it for her. We taught Gus to use a frisbee because she wanted to chase the ball so badly with him.

She loved playing captain of the bay.

When she was young, she rode everywhere with Jeff and I was almost jealous that she might like him more. She would ride in the back seat of his truck with the window down on the driver side. She would stand on the door and put her head up as high as she could. Everyone knew Lemony and Jeff were coming because of her.

Later, Jeff got our Jeep and that became the dog mobile, it also became her preferred method of travel. Jeff had taken the backseat out so that she would stand on the side and stick her head out as far as she could there. We had to start spelling out  J-E-E-P when wen we wanted to go riding in the Jeep without her because she associated the Jeep as getting to ride along.

We had recently had to quit taking her in the Jeep because we felt it was too hard on her back legs. That was my first realization that things were going to get hard.

I have several photos of this scene. Tucker loved laying on her. She never seemed to mind.

When I retired, she became my constant companion. We have had 7 years of being together for just about everything. She was my bud every single day!

Mother, the non dog lover has become quite attached to the pups since moving to be closer to us. She always greeted Mom when she arrived and she will miss that immensely. In fact, the neighborhood is going to miss her sweet face. She was known by all.

The most recent name that I had given her was Golden Girl. She may have been a Golden Retriever but she was golden in every sense of the word. We will miss her so much. Our dogs become family members and we grieve when they are gone. I will miss her sitting in the front window. 

IT will be hard to ride in the Jeep and not think about her, but the 12 years we had were truly golden years.

I will miss my Golden Girl.

I probably won't respond to comments on last post or this one this week. Need a little time.