From your Mommie Deborah:
sara-6-23-04 (20k image) We came home from work Friday night and were greeted by just one set of legs under the driveway fence, which in itself wasn-t too unusual. So we went through the house to the back yard to check on Sara and Ripley as we always did upon coming home. Sara was no where to be seen in the back yard, but that also is not unusual as she liked to lay by the side of the house and you often had to go out into the yard to see her. The first thing I noticed was the pool cover on the shallow end looked blown off, and I said out loud,-Oh, Sara-, thinking she had gone for one of her harmless romps.

She loved to jump on the pool cover and run along the top of the pool. All the while Ripley would run down the side of the pool, it was a game to Sara, and she loved it. Don came home the other night and found Sara all wet, wagging her tail as happy as could be. Just the day before my friend Melissa and I were watching Sara do this. You should have seen her, it was great, she loved it. And when she was ready, she cautiously went to the side of the pool, found a stable spot on the pool cover and jumped out. Time and again she did it, she was very sure-footed and fearless. And since she could squeeze through the pool fence, I guess she did this a lot. So we spent quite a bit of time with her in the pool, making sure she could swim, making sure she could find the stairs, she was a champ. She-d swim right to the edge of the pool and swim along it until she got to the stairs and then she-d hop out. You can-t imagine how amazing it was the first time she cut across the top of the pool cover to catch up with Don, she was so little that she walked on the water as if it was nothing, and so happy when she jumped out. She was a fearless force of life.

So back to Friday, she did not come when called, she wasn-t in the yard, so we yanked the cover off the pool and there she was. Our little Sara, lying peacefully at the bottom of the pool. We had her for just 19 days, but she was a part of our family for 2 weeks longer than that, we picked her out when she was 6 weeks old and brought her home at 8 weeks old. She was just 2 days shy of 11 weeks old. She lived a lot of life in those short weeks, and we loved her bunches. The hole her passing left is un-fill-able. She was as sweet as she was fearless. When Ripley cowered at other dogs barking, Sara stopped planted her feet and stared at the offending dog. She was a good puppy.

Don and I and Ripley were grief stricken, numb and in shock. But Don knew the best thing for all of us was to move forward, and one of the first things he did was call Sara-s breeder. Saturday we brought home Sara-s little sister, Suzi-Que. Suzi is the runt of the litter and very timid and mellow, the opposite of Sara. But just as Sara was, she is sweet and loving, and she is helping us heal.

The pool gate has been outfitted with Gardening wire, securely attached so that the only thing that can fit through it is a very small mouse, and even though Suzi hadn-t even noticed the fence or discovered that she could fit through it before we secured it, it gives us peace of mind to know that when she does discover it, it is a barrier that she cannot cross without Don and I.

To lose Sara is devastating, the self-recriminations and the void that we all felt, was paralyzing. Suzi gives us a positive focus. We are so glad that she-s Sara-s sister, we feel like Sara is still a part of us, and that by having Suzi, in some small way we still have Sara with us.

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