A Hard Loss

This week I've been dealing with the loss of one of our dogs. It's been pretty painful for me mainly because this is really the first time in my life I've seriously had to deal with grieving for a lost loved one. I've been very lucky to not have lost anyone/anything I've been very close to before now. It's hard.

I'm still sort of in shock that she's not coming back and that I'll never see her again. I'm angry at myself for reasons I don't even know, but mostly I'm just overwhelmingly sad. I'm sad for her, and I'm sad for our other dog, who is now lonely and bored. And I'm sad that I won't get to pet her again or laugh at her crazy antics. I'm sad I won't get to call her name again or call her any of the possibly hundreds of nicknames we came up with for the year she was with us.

Juno was a German shorthair pointer. We rescued her from the Humane Society, and we presumed she came from a puppy mill down south, where there were purportedly lots of GSPs. She was starving thin, weak, very small for her breed, and had obviously had at least one litter of puppies before she was a year old. But she was also beautiful, sweet, and bat-shit insane (just the way we like our pets). She howled at ambulances and taught our other dog, Penny, to howl as well. She could never stand in one place for very long--she was very jittery, especially to begin with. Over the course of several months, she acquired a calmer disposition, but she was still a jumpy little Juno. She could not eat her food over the food bowl: she would scoop up a mouthful of kibble and run around the house, chewing along the way and spewing food in random spots.

The qualities that were a tad annoying to us at the time are now the things that I miss--the way she would spastically jump onto our bed and attack our faces, snuggling up with us as close as possible. But despite her spazzy tendencies, she was smart as a whip. She could learn a new command in a snap, and would respond to a simple verbal cue (whereas our other dog who is quite stubborn, requires more physical coaxing).

She was loved, although it took some getting used to. At first I wasn't her biggest fan, because I was already so in love with our first dog. It's been just in these past few months where she really started to grow on me. So losing her has seems especially hard now. I am trying to remain thankful for the time she was with us and think that she is resting peacefully now. I know I'll be okay and that I'll get through it, but it is hard.