Goodbye Emily

My dog was found in an abandoned building in Washington, DC in January 1999 by the Humane Society and was named Lady Bug.

I was a new home owner at that time and was looking for a dog. When I went to the pound, I saw "Lady Bug" (approximately 2-3 years old at that time) and she and I instantly bonded with each other. After two weeks of visiting her every day, the pound decided that she was coming home with me (I was the 6th person to apply for her adoption).

I liked everything about my new family member except for her name. So I changed her name to Emily. She was a great gentle dog and got along with all walks of life.

Emily was in pretty good health up until 3 years ago when she developed a heart murmur. It quickly worsened from stage 3 to stage 6 (18 month ago) and the vet didn't expect her to last more than a couple of months. Throughout this time, her appetite was great, she had pretty good energy, and always greeted you with a wagging tail.

Well, time caught up with her today and her heart started to fail. The first sign of trouble was that she didn't eat her dinner. Then she started to lose her balance and ended up collapsing on the front lawn.

I took her to the ER and they of course offered up tons of things they could check and do to possibly prolong her life. When I challenged the doctor by asking what more could we expect out of an 18-19 year old dog, she said that technically my dog shouldn't even be alive. So we took the humane approach and put her out of her misery.

Thank you Emily for being a wonderful companion for the last 16 years.