Josey

Last spring Ty and I were taking a walk around the neighborhood when we spotted this little puppy (or large puppy)  barking on the outside of a gate.  The owners of the house said she had been out there for a couple of days and they had no idea where she had come from.  She had no tags, just a pink collar.  She was definitely hungry and skiddish.  So Ty went home to get a leash so we could walk her around the nieghborhood asking people if they knew where she came from.  Well, we never found her owners and eventually decided to keep her.  Ty became pretty attached to her very quickly. 

That picture was taken shortly before we decided to keep her.  Like I said, he got attached quickly.  Josey and I had a love hate relationship.  She was a really sweet and pretty dog, but in my eyes, she was a lot of hassle.  To Ty, however, she was a challenge and became a constant companion.  Josey and our other dog Coda went with him every day to work.  While Coda was his first dog, he really enjoyed having a bigger dog that could do different things.  And she really was very sweet and gentle, other than the jumping up on people every now and then.

Well, after Thanksgiving, Ty noticed that she had lost a lot of weight.  In between Thanksgiving and Christmas, she became extremely skinny to where you could see almost every single bone.  It took 3 trips to Dr. Hounsel (our wonderful Vet who goes to our church and who provided all of Josey's stuff for us) to figure out that she had a rare pancreatic disease that kept her from absorbing the nutrients from her dog food.  Her food would just go right through her, so she was starving and there wasn't enough food we could give her to nourish her.  So, we had to make the decision to put her to sleep on Friday. 

It was hard for me, but it was and is extremely hard on Ty.  He loved that dog and really enjoyed her. We know that this is just a part of life, but it still really hurts when you lose an animal that you really love.  So when you don't see that big lumbering animal out at camp, now you know why.  We will miss her!