Abby’s Saturday // Four Hundred And Ninety-Nine

Derrick and I had been married just 8 months. We had bought our house and the next “logical” step was to get a dog.

We didn’t want just “any” dog though, we wanted the RIGHT dog – so we were keeping our eyes and ears open.

A nurse at the hospital Derrick was working at at the time had posted in the hospital’s virtual “help wanted ads” that she was moving and couldn’t take her puppy with her. Derrick had responded that we were a young couple looking to adopt a dog and had asked for a little more information.

That night, we went out to dinner to Olive Garden, and as we were sitting in the lobby waiting to be seated – Derrick’s phone DINGed and he received a tiny little picture of a sweet black puppy. The nurse said that she was just looking to give her pup up to a loving home as she couldn’t take her with her.

We were SO excited and made arrangements to meet up that night after dinner so we could meet the dog and see if we wanted to bring her home.

The nurse texted back and said: “That sounds great – we’ll see you in about 90 minutes. Abby is so excited to meet you!”

We looked at each other in shock: did she just say that the dog’s name was Abby?! That was OUR last name!!

We hardly ate our dinner and rushed straight back to town, searching in the dark for the nurse’s apartment.

We walked in and we were greeted by the most excited, energetic, tornado of a puppy. She was literally jumping over the furniture and bouncing off the walls.

We sat down on the couch and for a split second, Derrick looked at me with wide-eyes and said, “Do we want to take her home?”

“Absolutely, yes.”

And from that day forward – our lives were forever changed.

Our precious Abby made us a family of 3 and we were ecstatic. Sure, she was a bit (okay, a lot) insane for a little while – she chewed up several of our couches and would de-fluff pillows like it was no one’s business, but she loved us and we loved her.

She happily transitioned with us from northern PA, to south-western PA. She helped us welcome a baby girl, and then a baby boy into our family. She made our house a home – her nails clicking on the floor as she happily patrolled her domain.

Her favorite place in the whole world though was the Lake House – because then she could go swimming. Deep Creek Lake was her happy place and she would swim for hours upon hours upon hours.

Over the last few months, we’ve watched her slowly begin to deteriorate. She was approaching 14 years old and her once dark black face had changed to white. She started to slow down, spend more time on the couch, wouldn’t greet us at the door anymore, and we knew she was losing her sense of hearing. But we were determined to love her and do the best we could to make her comfortable until the very end.

And sadly, last Saturday was that day – the day we knew was coming, but had been absolutely dreading.

One week ago today, we said goodbye to our sweet, wonderful Abby-dog.

She was the absolute BEST dog we could have ever asked for and our lives simply won’t be the same without her. Our hearts are so heavy with not having her here with us anymore, but at the same time, we are so immensely grateful for the 13 sweet years we had.

It’s been a long, sad week.
Thankfully, we had nothing to do last weekend except stay home and be together. We cried, re-lived old memories, and then cried some more. And that’s basically been the theme of the entire week.
As the week went on, we noticed the absence of all the little things that were proof that there was a dog living in our house:
No more food bowls on the floor. No more dog bed in the corner. No more fur all over our couch. No more clicking of nails on the floor. We ate pizza on Sunday night (as is our tradition) and the kids spontaneously started crying because there was no one to toss their crusts to (one of their favorite “traditions”).

We keep looking for Abby to be in her usual spot on the couch or on her bed. We keep expecting her to be underfoot in the kitchen. We keep expecting to hear her walking around our house.

We laughed that we do have “a few” photos of our lives with her (I literally have FIVE HUNDRED official Abby’s Saturday photos, with many more thousand besides – this might be “Abby’s Saturday #499” but I did take one last “portrait” of her, which is the official #500. My plan is to still post it next Saturday – and to share what my plans for “Abby’s Saturday” might look like in the future. I was going to include those thoughts here, but this post is already too long.)

We’ll miss you always, Abby-dog.