I've known for a long time that this was a post I needed to write. Didn't want to, but needed to.
Just a few days ago (August 9th) marked exactly one year since we lost this precious friend to lymphoma. There. I said it.
It was just so hard to speak of, so hard to think about. Many of you heard about it in other ways, but since I wasn't blogging at the time, some of you never knew the story. Weegie was such a very big part of this blog. My goodness, he even wrote a post here and there making it even more difficult to imagine this little blog without his sweet spirit infusing everything from the stories and photos all the way down to things like recipe selection.
A recipe that included blueberries? A must have. Bacon? You betcha.
Weegie was almost 9 years old. He should have been around for a few more years.
Or forever.
When he was diagnosed in October of 2013 the veterinarian guessed he had 2-3 more months. I can't and won't begin to describe that day. It's etched in my brain and psyche forever. But.I don't want this to be a mournful post.
(By the way, in typical Weegie fashion, he stubbornly defied the odds and lived almost 10 months after the diagnosis.)
He was the sweetest, funniest, best dog.
No, today I want to celebrate. Celebrate God's goodness wrapped up in the gift of a slightly overweight, sometimes impertinent, hysterically funny, big-hearted dog with extremely short legs.
Weegie loved blueberries, bacon, cheese and pancakes. The pancakes had to be eaten outside. On the grass. Who knows why. But he insisted on it.
He disliked thunder, the hairdryer, and the vacuum cleaner. All evil, he thought.
He loved to eat, sleep in odd positions, ride in the Mule, chase the cows, eat, swim and poop (sorry). He was what we called a show-pooper. He liked an audience, and that's all I'll say about that.
Weegie loved water. Loved it. He was the Mark Spitz of the doggie world.
He was the sweetest, funniest, best dog.
The Mule did not move unless The Weege was in it. It just wasn't done.
Weegie let us know early on that he would pick and choose the rules he would follow. He absolutely excelled at house-training. I bet he had no more than two or three accidents ever. Period. On the other hand, Puppy School Training was not his forte. He did not enjoy any of the parts that involved sitting and obeying. He did, however, enjoy the copious amounts of attention that he received as the all time cutest Corgi puppy ever, and he loved to steal the treats from the other dogs in the class while they were, in fact, distracted by all the sitting and obeying. Brilliant.
He graduated with his class, but we always suspected that it was simply because of his perfect attendance.
Hey. He has a diploma. It counts.
Like I said,
He was the sweetest, funniest, best dog.
He had an incredibly high tolerance for pain. The doctors were always amazed. When he had a completely torn ACL (either from his running back days in the NFL)(or chasing the cows) he was almost impossible to keep still. On the day after surgery he escaped his tiny enclosed pen and made his way upstairs. Oy.
When the lymphoma slowly worsened, the vet said he had never seen a dog tolerate it with so much determination.
Weegie was tough. And smart.
For the last 8 months or so of his life, we were at the farm together. Mostly just the two of us. 24 hours a day. I will cherish every single one of those days with him.
In his last few months he loved to lay on the hill in the front yard at the farm. That place is shaded by a huge oak tree and from this vantage point he could keep an eye on his kingdom, the cows, and be in earshot of the Mule starting up.
We buried him on a very hot August afternoon in that exact spot.
If someone ever tells you that a dog can't make a difference in your life, you can be absolutely sure they never had a Weegie in theirs.
He was the sweetest. The funniest. The best.
Always in my heart.
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