Thankful for: Memories

Today is November 7th & this is my seventh Thankvember post.

 This morning we woke up to a very sick puppy. 

:(

Sidney was diagnosed about 2 months ago with doggy diabetes and we had been controlling it well with insulin, or so I had thought. After his diagnosis, we followed the vet's orders and he bounced back to his happy normal self again. 

About a week ago, I noticed rashes on his paws. I thought maybe he got into something outside, so I gave him a bath to wash him off... but the rash didn't go away. He seemed fine, only every now and then he would stop to lick his paws. So, we took him to the vet on Saturday who said the rash was unrelated to his diabetes and prescribed an antibiotic. Two days after starting the antibiotics, Sidney stopped eating. No eating means we can't give him his insulin. This morning, he was so weak, he couldn't get up. Christopher took our poor sick puppy with him to drop Roxy off at school, then straight to the vet's office. 

... but Sidney didn't make it to the vet. He died in the front seat of Christopher's car.

We all took a break from our normal schedules today to remember our little dachshund and to give him a proper burial. The kids drew pictures to bury with him, we planted flowers on his grave and we all talked about our favorite Sidney memories:

• That time during a hurricane when Sidney was a puppy (pre-children)... the power was out and Christopher and I walked into the living room to find a stumbling puppy. Disoriented and running into walls, my first thought was he got into something poisonous. We drove him straight away to the only open emergency vet clinic to discover the 'poison' he got into was a rum and coke left on the dining room table.
• The way he loved to attack our vacuum cleaner every single time I vacuumed.
• His old friend "Kitty" that he suddenly tore to pieces one day, we can only assume they had some sort of falling out. Kitty was his lovey. His favorite friend in the world. Imagine our surprise to come home to Kitty pieces all over the apartment. (btw - "Kitty" was a Hello Kitty stuffed animal.)
• That time we came home to 'snow' all over our living room floor. It was appropriate, we had just put the Christmas tree up. In this instance, the snow was a couch pillow he destroyed while we were out.
• How he used to jump to amazing heights, even though he's not supposed to. He was a dachshund after all.
• When Zoie used to crawl into his doggy bed and cuddle with him and he would sit there and endure the baby cuddles like the good little puppy he was.

I'm so thankful we have all these great memories of our Sidney. He was a great puppy and we miss him already.

p.s. After putting Sidney's body in the 3 foot deep hole, the kids all said goodbye and "I love you" one last time. My Zoie said two things for the very first time today...
(1) Sidney. She had always called him "Doggy", and
(2) I love you. Before today, she had never said those words.
"Goodbye, Sidney! I Lub You."

I'm not even jealous he got the 'I love you' before me.

<3, Tabi :D

Thankvember Blog Hop Linky after the jump...