A Tribute to Our Dog, Sadie

Most of this blog has been my running journey, but the big highlights (or lowlights in this case) also get a spot on the blog because I initially started this blog to stay in contact with my friends and family after moving to Alaska.

On Tuesday, Craig made the decision to put Sadie, our dog, down after blood tests revealed her kidneys had stopped working and her brain was no longer getting oxygen. We knew she was in a lot of pain, and he knew her quality of life was already declining.

Craig made an appointment with the vet that day as she wasn’t acting her normal self over the Labor Day weekend. She was breathing funny, stumbling around more than usual, and hadn’t been eating her dog food in a few weeks (but she would eat people food for the most part). I thought he would be bringing her back home with some meds, and she would perk back up a bit. He did mention he may not be bringing her home (he knew in his gut), but I was trying to stay optimistic and didn’t notice how bad she had gotten even in the last 12-24 hours. So I and the boys didn’t even get to say goodbye to her, which was kind of sad.

Craig and I adopted Sadie when she was about 1.5 years old back in September 2013. We attended an adoption clinic put on by AARF (Alaska Animal Rescue Friends) potentially interested in another dog we had seen online. When we got to the clinic, we quickly realized the puppy we say online was a puppy, and we didn’t necessarily want that much energy in our house. Craig spotted Sadie (who was actually named Sandy, but we could never remember her name, so we changed it to Sadie), and he said, “How about that one?” Amongst all the chaos of the animals at this adoption place, Sadie sat in her kennel with Tank (an elderly dog that probably never got adopted, sadly), so chill and calm. We took her for a short walk, talked to her foster mom, and she had so many great things to say about her we couldn’t figure out why no one wanted to adopt her! She was potty trained, never jumped, had the sweetest demeanor, and the only “catch” was that she had a thyroid disorder and had to take medication every day. She had already had a litter of puppies and had a motherly sense about her.

I wrote this blog post when I announced we got her, which was just a month after we had moved into our house and our first opportunity to have a pet. Initially we were told she was a black lab and shar pei mix, but after Googling photos we know she was a black lab and pit bull mix. We adopted her in 2013, just a year before Cullen was born. It’s crazy to think she was a part of our lives longer than our kids have been.

While I tried to train Sadie to run with me, she was *not* interested in running with me. She liked to stop and sniff way to much. I just ended up pulling her home by the end. This was honestly fine with me. I’d gone so long running by myself, I wasn’t necessarily looking for a running companion.

But she was honestly the best dog we could have asked for. She was never aggressive with anyone or any other dogs, never barked when someone came to our house (only if there was a moose in our yard), she was great with the kids–even when they would pull on her tail or ears as babies, and she never had accidents when she was in the house. (The few times she threw up because she was fed too much people food, but she always threw up on the hard wood floors.).

So here’s a tribute to Sadie and her favorite things:

Food: bananas, oranges, kale (but not spinach)

Activities: going for walks or hikes, lounging, cuddling, barking at the moose outside our window in Alaska, chasing the cats in the neighborhood

Person: Craig

Spot to lay: couch, in the sun, and she got to lay in bed with Craig when I was gone

Dislikes: playing fetch, earthquakes, turning around and going back home during a walk or hike (she would always walk SO slowly)

Funny stories:

• Her eating an entire bag of dried mangoes from Costco and then proceeding to poop mangoes for the next several days.
• There were a few times she would run off on me on a walk, and I was so mad that I had lost her, only to discover she was on our front stoop waiting for me.
• When we first had Cullen, she was not too happy and chewed a couple of his toys.

I just did a search on my blog for photos of Sadie, and I *completely* forgot I wrote this blog post about her: A Day in the Life of Sadie. This was just a few months before Cullen was born.

We will miss you Sadie and your unconditional love. We will never know why you were returned a couple times to the adoption agency before we adopted you, but Craig likes to think God knew you were supposed to come and live with us. We hope we gave you the best life we could and you have so many wonderful memories with us.