08/08/2024
Maddie Girl's Collection
So many of you have experienced the sadness of losing a beloved pet. Some of you have experienced shock, sadness and even anger at losing a pet suddenly. The latter is what happened to us – me, my husband and our remaining dogs Teddy and Bernie.
A month ago, our dog Maddie Girl, a Golden/Shepard mix was her old self – running out the door each morning to the end of the front fence to meet our mailman and retrieve her daily Milk bone that he tossed in her direction every day; and, running the full stretch of our 1.5 acre back fence each noon time to meet Tinka, our neighbor’s dog and Maddie Girl’s best buddy. In the late afternoon, she would join me in my craft room while I made earrings. It was always me in my chair at the craft table, and Maddie resting on her dog bed next to me.
Two weeks ago, everything changed. Maddie became lethargic and let her brothers chase after the mail while she stayed in the house. Her friend Tinka barked for her, but Maddie Girl didn’t go down to meet her.
By the second day, Maddie stopped eating and moved in slow motion when getting a small drink of water. We rushed her to the emergency vet, who put her on a strong antibiotic and sent us home.
She got better for a day or two, and then just seemed to fade. We rushed her to the vet again and this time, they kept her overnight. Still at the animal hospital, our Maddie Girl died suddenly the next afternoon, July 27th. She was 5 years old. She was healthy and then she was gone.
Her family - me my husband, her brothers Teddy and Bernie - were immediately devastated. We are still in shock and all of us are grieving her loss in our own ways. My husband and I have had many dogs over the years, most of whom have died of old age. As we heap love and attention on our two depressed dog boys, we know the sorrow of losing Maddie Girl will eventually lessen, but we also know, with her passing, we’ve lost a piece of our hearts.
Over the last two weeks, I haven’t known what to do with myself. Before Maddie died, I started experimenting with making earrings (my recent obsession) out of wood, fabric, liquid acrylic and beads. It is a slow, time-consuming process with about 11 separate steps. The work was ignored while my Maddie Girl struggled to survive. Afterwards, I thought about throwing it all away as it was hard to look at that project and not remember my Maddie sitting next to me while I worked on it. But during my sorrow over the past week, I decided I would finish the project in Maddie’s name and give any profits from sales to our animal shelter.
It’s not a lot, but it is in some small way, it is my tribute to my best friend, Maddie Girl.
