Thandi, Love

Seventeen years ago a friend of ours knew some people who had found a stray dog, they couldn't care for it and somehow it turned out that the little animal came to live with us.  She was a rat of a dog, mixed with so many things that the vet didn't even want to venture a guess at what all she was... we called her a dober-mouse.  We named her Thandi, it means LOVE in Zulu. (You may remember that my parents have a tie to Africa) And she was mine... my dog. I fell in love her and I became an advocate for her, see, she wasn't really the best dog.  She chewed up furniture, shoes, glasses, retainers, ant traps, toys, modeling clay, etc...  She also barked a lot, and she was really, really difficult to house train. But she had a lot of energy, and she loved to play Frisbee... she and my dad's cat became fast friends and they got into all sort of trouble together. 

On Thursday we had to put her down. In the last year she took some sharp turns downhill.  She had doggie dementia, she could remember to sleep at night and not during the day, she would bark non stop, she was blind and deaf and had so much arthritis...  It was definitely the correct choice, it was so hard on my parents to care for her, but it is so sad. Seventeen years that little life was a part of mine. She brought a lot of joy and I will truly miss her.