RIP Sandy Girl....May 18, 1995-May 11, 2009

The day I got the tiny Sandy Girl Brown, I put her in the stroller with Will and he smiled and squealed. I guess that Will was almost one, and Sandy was maybe 5 or 6 weeks old. She was the happiest, most loving dog, with her ears always perking up and her tail going nonstop. She was chihuahua all the way, serious when it counted but pretty happy go lucky most of the time.



Coco was already the senior dog and they made quite a pair, with crazy Jess screeching on the side and taking off into the night. I don't even remember who all else I had by then, but Sandy blended in naturally as the middle child who was always needy and wanting love and attention; she was a love sponge.

I named her after one of my very favorite Springsteen Songs, which I sang to her every time I bathed her (the dogs all used to have songs for the tub.) We played it today when we laid her to rest, in a deep hole beside the house, with a Flying Dragon tree planted over her body and a temporary stone, marked with Sharpie:





Even in her old age, having trouble walking, and with her heart and kidneys failing, she remained the happiest one in the pack...deaf and mostly blind, she could still smell a Chinese rib across the house, and she would stagger over for a piece; Sandy always was a food dog and had been pretty fat for most of her life. In the past weeks, knowing that she was at the end, I was able to give her alot of rib and Beggin' Strips, and all that stuff that I consider junk food for dogs. I took her up into my bed yesterday and she was so happy there. She had a whole Beggin' Strip at bedtime and as I went upstairs I heard her snapping at Spike to get away from her treat. She was a tough old broad to the end....the vet thinks that she didn't suffer from my explanation of how she looked when I found her in the morning. It was probably a stroke...her heart was going...

RIP old girl...She was a very good girl....I'm gonna miss her....