RIP ‘Old Dog’

The new year is when you want to think about renewal and rebirth, not about death. However, during the night sometime, Abbey (“Old Dog”) passed away quietly in her sleep. I say “quietly” because she generally cries to be let out of her kennel around 3 a.m., but no cry came last night.

Abbey was a black Labrador Retriever who we adopted from the Human Society when we lived in Northern Virginia. Like most of our rescues, we never intended to adopt her. Instead, we had gone into a pet store unknowingly on a day that they had one of those suck-you-in pet adoptions with all the rescues staring at you from a big, open-top kennel encouraging you to reach in to pet those sad-eyed dogs. That’s when The Husband–the NON animal lover–reached in and swooped up a skinny little black Lab and carried her around the store while we got food for our other rescued animals waiting for us at home.

She was forever The Husband’s dog after that.

Abbey never much cared for me. After having her for a few days, it was painfully obvious that she had been abused by a woman because she ran and cowered in the corner any time she heard my voice or I entered a room with her. Sometimes she peed. It took her a good six months (maybe even a year, I can’t remember now) for her to even let me pet her, and even 13+ years later she barely tolerated me. If I would speak to her in my most loving pet voice, she would stop, sigh and then look the other way while I scratched her behind the ear.

She loved The Husband; she hated Ninja Cocaine Kitty and me, but tolerated the four year old. She was pissed when we brought Destructo Dog home and tried to bite her every time the puppy wanted to play with her.

Abbey loved snow, but was a Labrador Retriever who hated the water–a fact we found out when we bought a house on the water and realized that she was miserable when we made her get wet.

Although she’s been declining in the past couple of months and we knew this was inevitable, it’s still hard to think about our life without her. Even if she didn’t like me.

RIP Old Dog.

Tags: death, featured, Old Dog, pets

Category: Destructo Ninja