Amber

April 12, 1992 – August 20, 2006

You picked me. I drove out into the country to look at a litter of puppies on a farm. Both of your parents lived on the farm and you had about 10 siblings. I climbed in the outdoor pen to meet all of you and you all ran over and checked me out for a second or two, and then everyone ran away except you. You stayed and played with my shoe laces and wrapped around me like a cat would. I knew you were the one. You had picked me as much as I had picked you.

When I first brought you home, I would sit cross-legged on the floor and you would nestle in my lap. It was your safe space. As you got larger we couldn’t really do that any more, but we got close. Wherever I was sitting, you would come and sit between my knees and I would hug you and rub under your ears. The more scared you were, the more tightly we would cuddle.

I remember you giving me “the look” – a lot. You started as a puppy, and continued through your life. You talked in your sleep, and you’d dig or chase bunnies while lying on your side. You never did both at once. There was a difference. When you were chasing bunnies all four of your feet would twitch. When you were digging, only your front paws would move and they would actually make digging motions. About the time you turned 14 you would stand up and dig. Sometimes I’d try and wake you, but you were pretty much in a trace and unwakable. After a few minutes, you’d lie right back down and go to sleep.

You liked to make snow angels. First, you’d burrow your nose in under the snow and snuffle. Then you’d kind of dive in and roll over on your back and wiggle back and forth. The end result would look more like an hour glass than and angel, but it was fun to watch and it made you quite happy.

You used to stand on your hind legs, put your front paws on my shoulders, and kiss my nose.

You had a water bowl under a spigot on our back patio. One of your favorite things to do was to splash some of the water out of the bucket so that it would make a little water trail as it ran across the patio. You would follow the water until the trail would stop, and then you would go back and splash more water out of the bucket and go back to the end of the trail and watch the water start to move again. You would do this over and over until the water finally ran off the patio into the yard.

I called you my furry alarm clock. Every morning you would rest your chin on my bed and stare at me until I’d wake up. I’d pretend I was still asleep. If I didn’t get up when you wanted, you would poke me in the eyelid with your cold, wet nose. Just like an alarm clock, if I told you to go back to sleep you’d give me another 15 minutes and start to wake me again.

Each morning when I would go upstairs to get ready for work, you would follow me up and find a squeaky to tease me with. We’d play about 10 minutes before I’d really start to get ready. While I was in the shower you would get up on the bed so that when I came out I would see you looking at me with your paws hanging over the edge. We would then hug nose to nose – somehow the bridge of your forehead fit in the indent between my forehead and nose, and we would stay like that with me rubbing under your ears for about a minute. You stay in your place on the bed until I was dressed for work. You had tons of toys, almost all were squeaky latex that mom would bring you every time she came. There were close to 2 dozen. Your favorite squeaky was always whichever one I played with last. Your most favorite toy of all was jingle ball – a hard orange ball with a jingle bell inside rattling around.

We had a fig tree in our back yard and you would stand on your hind legs and eat the figs right off of the tree. I always had to stretch to get figs for me because you had eaten everything up to about 4 ½ feet off the ground.

When you would see a deer and it didn’t see you, you would go into stealth mode. You would start moving very slowly and deliberately to sneak up on the deer. You could do it for several minutes without making a sound. It was usually me who accidentally snapped a branch and alerted the deer.

My best and most lasting memory is that you were always there, no matter where I moved to within the house, or how tired you were, you came to join me and be at my feet or my side.