losing a love

Well I was gonna write about school this week but I lost a love of mine. She was a rotweiler. She was 14 years old when she passed away on April 6th, 2010. I loved that dog. This is one of those stories that it was not meant to be in the first place but it was, it just happpened by mistake. Let me tell you a little story about my dog. I remember I was pregnant with my son when she came wondering by and Me being an animal lover I called for because she looked like she was lost. It was summer out side I was only about 2-3 months along in my pregnancy. She came right over and we pet her and she was just so sweet and so I went in to get her some dog food and water she stayed outside with my other family members. I remember we left her in the backyard that night because we already had two feisty dogs in our house and it was nice outside. We hoped that maybe she just ran away and somebody would come and claim her because their were no dog tags and no dog collar on her either. The next morning we got up she was out side sleeping on our picnic bench. I could say that we adopted her but it would be more appropriate to say she adopted us. Well, thats' because we did not have a leash on her nor did we have a fenced in back yard. We lived at a dead end street. When we moved we got her a dog house and a collar to chain her up because the street was way busier than it was when we first found her. As my son got about 2 or 3 years old, he used to ride her like a horse. I swear that dog loved it too! All the time we had her she never bit anybody, always came running to you when you called her name. Her name was xena, for the xena the princess warrior that used to be a show on television. I don't think I remember her even growling at anybody, EVER. Well, the day she passed away my neighbors had been helping me watch her for awhile because she went blind a few months ago and I was worried about her. So, the day I came home from work they described that acted like her legs didn't work or were very stiff. So, I went over to check her legs to see if she cut her self or had a sore or something. I just wanted to make she wasn't in pain. I sat down beside her and she was breathing very heavily. I talked to her and petted her and she seemed like something was very wrong so I was calling my friend from the SPCA to ask if her if she could come over and and euthanize her for me because she was really bad off. As I am on the phone with my friend she starts growling a little bit. This whole time I have been petting her. So I let my friend go and the dog growled a couple more times and then took her last breath as I was sitting beside her and petting her. It tore me up to think that the dog actually might have until I got there to die. I'm so glad that she died with somebody who loved her. It brings tears to my eyes to think about it but Im glad I was there.