A Painful Good-Bye

I had to say a very painful good-bye to my best friend Archie this past Friday night (April 4th). He was diagnosed with cancer and within a week of finding out he deteriorated pretty quickly. Archie hadn’t been his true self for about a year. DD and I both had taken him in several times for tests and nothing showed up. Archie was approximately 12 years old going on 13 or maybe older, we really didn’t know his true age.
Archie was a fun loving companion to both DD and I. All Archie ever wanted was to be loved and petted. Oh…I definitely can’t forget his obsession with the trash and people food!! I remember shortly after Archie joined our family, DD made him a wonderful breakfast in a clean metal bowl (something he wasn’t use to). Well that evening we went outside to feed him again and saw that Archie never touched his breakfast. DD threw it out in the woods, so we could feed him again and to our surprise Archie ate his breakfast as soon as DD threw it on the ground. It’s probably a very good thing that I don’t know what Archie has really been through before coming to us! The thought of someone miss treating him makes me sick!!
After DD and I were married we moved in with my dad while we built our house. It was about a month after we moved in when my dad came in from outside and told me there was a dog outside. Nothing else was said; I jumped up and ran outside. Even though he was pretty pitiful looking it was LOVE at first site. Archie was very skittish, but I knew we had to keep him. You could tell whoever had him before abused him pretty badly because on one side of his mouth his teeth were knocked in half and he was covered with ticks from head to toe. I really don’t think I had ever seen soooooo many ticks on a dog, it was pretty gross. I made DD give him the first bath. Archie was scared of everything and I mean everything…SPECIALLY feet. DD and I gave Archie a lot of love and affection (this was probably something he never had) to get him to trust us. For about a year Archie was strictly an outside dog but we finally house trained him and he became an indoor dog from then on. (this wasn’t an easy task). Archie and I became very close pretty fast and he followed me everywhere…well unless his nose tracked something outside and if that happened, he would take off or just ignore me. He truly was my best friend and my little shadow. It didn’t matter how sick or upset I was I always knew Archie would be right next to me asleep or nudging me so I would pet him! He would sometimes panic if he couldn’t find me…at times he would frantically run all over the house searching until he did find me. I will miss him deeply and I will never forget how we saved his life!
I know that when you finish one chapter another one begins but this is one of those chapters in my life that I could read over and over again. I am fortunate though to have all the memories and pictures that I do and although this was so very hard I know that I won’t think twice about letting another into my heart one day.
Archie will always be in my heart ! Good-Bye my sweet little boy!! I love you!!