The Missing

This is the last picture ever taken of Petal - it was Tuesday April 8th and Zero insisted on sleeping ON Halo. Petal is obviously not feeling well in this pic and she is snuggled into down throws to keep warm.

We are adjusting to the sudden absence of two of our household. It is odd. The loss of Petal is obviously the harder one for me to bear but Zero being gone is harder on the dogs. Raimi seems like he's wondering who's next. Halo has realized that she is now the alpha butt kicker after me and for a couple days there it sort of went to her head but we've sorted it out.


Here we are - status quo being two cats two dogs and a Petal in a temporary vase til her urn arrives in a couple months. She is now a little bag of crumbly bits and dust - still, it feels better that she's here. I say goodbye to her in the morning and 'Hello Precious' when I come home. Her collar and a couple of her favorite cookies sit at the base of the vase and I know she is nearby all the time. That dog would walk through fire on a bed of nails to be with me. Some memories that occurred to me I wanted to post so I don't forget:

Do you need to pee? We taught her this when she was a puppy - she would stand on her hind legs and tap your knee to get your attention, when you asked 'the question' she would race to the door. If you didn't follow she'd come back looking for you and dance around til you asked again. If you got up she would do a little happy dance all the way to the door. One time she asked my Dad and he didn't want to get up so he said 'Ask Tamzin'. She looked at him for a second, looked at me, he repeated 'Go on - ask Tamzin' and she came over and tapped me on the knee whereupon I asked "Do you need to pee?" and it was the happy dance to the door. I have since taught the Ridgeback the question and while I don't get the happy dance I do get the head tilt & wrinkle which is either a 'yes' or a 'I have no idea what you're saying but I'll go outside if you say so'. That second one is obviously The Boy.


I used to go for walks with my friend Tanja and her (then) toddler Annika - when Anni wanted to walk Petal got to ride in the stroller. She loved it. We did this at Spruce Meadows a couple times and got some strange looks! The baby walking and the dog rolling.

Petal loved car rides. It was her favorite thing after to me and roast chicken or pork. It was nerve shattering for anyone who rode with her but I could never deny her the joy she got from making her horrible little whiny, screechy, moany noises when we were in the car. It was so exciting for a little Precious. To this day I have no idea what all those sounds meant but they seemed like happy sounds.

That's all I can remember for now. I'll try to get some others down in the coming weeks. I want to put them somewhere so I can remember ... otherwise ... I'll forget.

I'll talk more about the Ridgebacks soon, Petal is on the brain so it's hard to navigate away from that.