Rest in Peace

My mind is completely jumbled with tons of thoughts & I am not sure where to I should start.

Difficult does not even begin to explain the past week of my life!  A week ago today my entire world was turned upside down.  As you probably already know my amazingly, wonderfully, lovable dog, Sassy passed away last Tuesday.  She had been showing signs of sickness for less than 2 weeks.  We thought she was getting better, but she all of a sudden got extremely worse.

It is a constant battle to not blame myself for her death.  As her momma, I feel like I could have done more to try to help and save her.

Dr. Carlson called me on Saturday (7/14) to give me the preliminary findings on Sassy (which is explained more in the previous posting).  He said then that Sassy had developed an infection in her kidneys.  The doctors were going to run more tests to find more answers.

He called me last night (Monday 7/16) to give me the final diagnosis.  He told me that the doctors could not isolate the strand of bacteria that Sassy had. 

Dr. Carlson said it was probably some type of bacteria that was so overwhelming that her body could not fight it off.

They don’t know she wasn’t sick longer than she was or why she felt better then all of a sudden she did a 180 degree turn for the worst.

So basically, I will never know exactly what happened to Sassy besides it was some kind of bacterial infection. :’(

Dr. Carlson said that Sassy didn’t suffer long.  Sassy was a fighter!  She held on as long as she possibly could.  She did everything I asked her to do in her sickest of days.  She was the GREATEST DOG EVER!!

Lord, when I prayed "…I can't live without Sassy..." I did NOT mean I couldn't, I meant I didn't want to... this is a lesson that I really didn't need to learn this way! :'( I will know to word my prayers differently from now on!

Sassy changed my entire world!  She came to me during the scariest time in my life.  There will always be a place in my heart with her name on it!

A picture frame in my room says,

*God sent me an angel disguised in fur to remind me of love* ßthat describes Sassy exactly!

My final goodbye to Sassy will be burying some of her ashes in the hole in the backyard.  I need to let go and let her to rest because there is nothing I can do to bring her back!  She wouldn’t want me to live my life holding on and being unhappy.

I want to get another dog in the future, but I don’t know when the appropriate time is.  I don’t want to disrespect Sassy and rush out to get another dog & it be like Sassy never existed!  She is too special to ever forget her though!  I also want what is best for Sydney!  She has been super depressed!  I want her to have another playmate!

I learned that within the German Shepherd breed there are 13 different distinct colors of dogs.  Sassy was the Silver Sable.

I will admit that the night I went to get Sassy, it was not love at first sight because she was not the “typical” GSD color that I had pictured in my head.  (I did not see a picture of Sassy before I went to meet her)  But within the first couple of minutes of being in the car with her, I fell head over heels completely in love with her!

I do want to get another GSD someday.  I looked up GSD rescue shelters; I saw a female German Shepherd that was a silver sable shepherd.  She looks like she could be Sassy’s twin.  Her name is Diva.  The first two words used to describe her are sweet & sassy :)

At first I wanted to get the same color dog as Sassy, but the more I looked at the pictures of Diva the more I compared her to Sassy.  I don’t want to do that to a dog.  I want to accept them for the individual dog they are.  I don’t want to only think of Sassy when I look at a dog and I’m thinking it would be very hard on Sydney!  I don’t want it to be like a mean trick played on her… that Sassy went away for a few weeks and then just showed back up.

It has been an extremely hard week, but I will continue to take it one day at a time and I will be able to pull my life back together again someday.  Be patient with me because Sassy to me was like any mother’s daughter…whether human or an animal.

Rest in peace my sweet baby girl<3