graperoo.

my mom just called to tell me that our doggie and fabulous boston terrier, gracie butterfly, has passed. sad, sad news. we got her when I was thirteen. so we had her for more than half of my lifetime.

recently:
-my mom and sister noticed gracie had a tumor. turns out it started in a rib and was around her heart and going into her spine. so far there were no outward signs of pain, and the vet said it was growing rapidly, but we probably still had a while before it began to hurt her, so my mom decided that she would wait to do anything further until I came to Tulsa and got to see Gracie one last time. this was about two weeks ago.

as a doggie:
-she thought she was a cat. The other two animals in the house were both cats, Rainbow Sunshine and Bluey Moonbeam (Anna and I named them when we were 5, can you tell?) and she thought she was one of them. Gracie refused to eat her dog food--and loved Deli Cat so much that once we found our about her tumor that was only able to be operated on if they built her a new ribcage after, my mom had some shipped in from another state since OK doesn't have it anymore.

-she was so easy going. a great cuddler and I loved LOVED it that even when she hadn't seen me in a long time she would hear my voice and come-a-runnin.

-she would dance on her hind legs. sometimes with our help, sometimes not.

as a puppy:
-someone stole her. (no joke) we got her back because some little girl (too young for elementary school even) saw the picture we held out and said "I saw her as such-and-such's house." Gracie had escaped from our kitchen door one time at the end of a school day (we lived directly across the street from Eliot) and the neighbor had apparently taken her home--but we knew it wasn't some sympathetic lost dog thing--we saw Gracie scurry out the door, followed her immediately and then couldn't find her anymore. And of course Gracie had on a tag, and we were out looking, and whoever grabbed her was right next to our house!! So, my mom followed the lady to her neighbor's house, saw Gracie in those people's yard, asked the little girl in the yard (a different one, she said probably ten years old) if her parents were home, and she said no, so my mom asked about the dog--her parents had come home and said "look what we found!" gave the girl the $50 in reward money and took Gracie back home.

-Gracie REFUSED to pee on anyone. Before she was actually paper trained. She'd pee anywhere else, and sometimes make it to the paper, but she never peed on a person. I one time wrote an entire paper with her on my lap, picked her up to put her down and she began to go immediately. I was kind of impressed 'cause she knew enough not to do it on us, even without our telling her.

-She got hit in the head by car on one of her infamous kitchen-door-escapes. She had a huge bare spot on her head that slowly filled in, but even, what, fifteen years later, it's still there. Poor doggie was thisclose to not being alive. She got better though. :)

Some people don't get about how animals become a part of your family, a part of your life. But they do. My mom wanted a Boston Terrier her whooooole life. And she got one. :)

I will miss my Graperoo-Grapes-Grapetastic-Graaaaaaaaacie. I'm quite sad she won't be there next week, but I'm relieved she isn't going to suffer, and my mom isn't going to have to decide to put her to sleep. :)