Today Qammi took her last breathe and it is a very very sad day. We have had her for 9.5 years and she has been a wonderful dog. She spent her first week sitting on Bee's lap and spent every night possible after that sleeping on her bed. She was a pretty spoiled dog. Many guests were surprised that she was allowed to sit on our couches and she often would crawl up beside one of them on the couch and lean her chin on their knee. Looking at them with those chocolate lab eyes as if to say "What, I spend more time on this couch than you do, and in fact you are sitting in my spot."
Last winter she really thought we had lost our minds when we participated in an event in North Hero called The Great Ice which is a 2 mile walk to Knight island over the frozen lake and then 2 miles back. Once we arrived on the Island she was pretty confused that we would venture back over the ice. It took a leash and lots of encouragement for her to do the return trip, until she could see the mainland again.
She loved to roll on her back whether in the spring grass, the fall leaves or the winter snow. In fact, in the early hours of her last day, she rolled in the new snow.
She loved water, and swimming. At my brother and sister-in-law's house in VT, she would be in the pond the entire day if we let her. She would chase a tennis ball as many times as someone would throw it to the point of over exhaustion.
At another brother and sister-in-law's house in VT she was chased by a cow once and did a sommersault over an electric wire as she tried to get away from the cow. We left Qammi with them one time and she got a cut above her eye from some metal on their truck. They took her to their vet for stitches, and we arrived home shortly after their return from the vet.
She was a bit of a chicken, never the top dog. At her favorite place to walk in Willard's Woods in Lex, if there was an agressive dog ahead she would make a big semi-circle around them to avoid the conflict.
We were on a morning schedule for walking her, I got M and W and the weekends, Murg got T TH and F. Qammi could tell by our morning actions, which one of us was walking her.
Almost every day of her life she would follow me into the bathroom and drink water from my bath. This morning she would not drink which is when I knew she was really not well.
There are lots more stories, which I will remember over the next few months. I am really going to miss those eyes, and that wagging tail. I am going to miss being greeted every time I open the front door, and her peeking through the window to see who is arriving home. I might even miss her barking at the dog walking in front of our house.
I am going to miss those morning and early evening walks on the bike path.
Life is so precious and fragile and when those that we love have taken their last breathe, we are left with the memories and the stories and the pictures of them.
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