"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's." Mark Twain

On Sunday, March 20^th, the last day of winter, Bobby and I said goodbye to our dear Luci. As I mentioned previously, she had developed a cough. Looking back on it now – it’s hard to tell exactly when the cough started. It doesn't really matter anyways. Towards the end of February, it quickly became apparent that the cough was only getting worse and it wasn’t going away.  There several trips to the vet - lots of X-rays, lots of ultrasounds - all of which didn't show us 100% of what exactly was going on. The one thing they could see was that her heart and lungs had been through a lot. We ended up trying three different antibiotics and nothing seemed to help. Her cough continued to worsen and she lost her appetite and energy. As it would turn out, what started as a slight cough turned out to be cancer.

I never would have imagined a day would come that Luci would refuse to eat chicken, fried chicken, bacon, hot dogs, gouda – anything. Health was never on her side but she never seemed to let it slow her down. She always managed to gather up the strength for the weakest wag.

When our paths crossed with Luci’s, we were at a point in our relationship where we had just started talking about getting a dog. We didn’t know what kind of dog we wanted, but we knew we wanted a rescue. Her howling is what caught our attention. When we first heard her cry, we thought it was a siren – a broken siren. But no, it was just her - howling away…waiting for someone to notice her – she looked pitiful. 

She was covered in dirt, ticks (even had one on her eyelid), was emaciated, had a bloated stomach (full of worms from eating grass) and we would later find out had heart full of heartworms. There’s no telling how long she was in this state – her first vet estimated it could have been a year. She could have just gotten lost on a hunt one morning. It could have been that her previous owner decided he no longer needed a dog with heartworms and bad hips so he dumped her. One look into her big brown eyes and we realized that if we turned our back on her then she would die. We felt it necessary to give her a chance.

Our first trip to the vet was awkward. Here, I thought we would be treated with respect – not like we were trying to be Mother Theresa – but I didn’t think we would be chided.

“Why would you rescue a dog?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why would you just pick up a dog and bring it home?”

“What do you mean?”

Granted, it may have been that the vet took one look at Luci and then us (we were barely 19) and thought we were incapable of taking care of her. We knew from the very beginning we weren’t bringing home a puppy. We weren’t bringing home a dog in tiptop shape. We knew she had health problems – we knew. That’s why we did the best we could to help her. And together with the help of our friends and family, we gave her the best life we could.

Although Luci went through several obstacles related to her health, she always managed to be happy. If she were a human, she would be one of those graceful grandmothers who's sole goal in life is to keep her family happy no matter how bad of day she is having. Through all that she endured, she never once showed an ounce of aggressiveness or irritation – that dog knew no anger. She had complete trust in us. We are beyond thankful that we were able to save Luci and give her a new life in the city. We made her the queen of our homes and shared her love with all of our friends and family. We will always remember her trusting love, patient manner, comforting eyes, constant drool and beautiful howl. She was a tender soul.

This past month has been full of heartbreak and frustration. And anguish. We realized the decision we had to make and realized that the longer we waited, the more suffering Luci would endure. Together, we managed to muster up the courage and strength we needed and spent Luci’s final hours doing what she loved most – scratching her ears and belly. 

She will forever hold a special place in our hearts and memories. She will always be our Lulu, Lucci, Luci-head, Lu, Grandma, Grandma Luci, Lucifur, Lucifer. She will always be our first dog. Our lovechild. Our first hound dog.

I want to say thank you to our friends and family. Thank you for your compassion and support. Thank you for listening to us and letting us lean on you. Thank you for being a part of our lives. It warms our hearts to hear your stories of Luci.

This is the first week of Spring and with it we start a new chapter in our lives. While we mourn the loss of our beloved Luci, we look forward to the days ahead and the new challenges they will bring.