Goodbye Emily
| July 28, 2010 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Uncategorized |
I found out today that my families dog Emily passed away. I thought I would share her story.
We found Emily after we bought a new house on 40 acres out in the middle of no where. We were starting to go through the house just after signing on it, while the former owners took a few last boxes. We saw a dog and cat and thought the owners forgot them but they said they weren’t theirs.
I’m sure I said “please daddy can we keep them” and I’m sure my dad said yes pretty quickly, he normally did. My mom named her after Emily Dickinson as she liked naming our pets after authors. She was very shy, she wouldn’t come anywhere near us. She just would play with her kitten friend (Her name was Juliet and she died several years ago) and a little stuffed bear she had found.
She loved her kitty and would carry her in her mouth very gently (this scared some friends when they saw this) and slept with her and kept her safe. The kitten would come to us but Emily was just to scared. She had been abused and was very scared of all people but men scared her the most.
I sat in the front yard for hours at a time with treats talking softly to Emily asking her to please come to me and telling her I would never hurt her. I will never forget the day she finally let me pet her, she came to the front porch and laid on her back and let me pet her. I got my mom and brother to come look through the window, we were all so happy!
It still took a long time to get her to let others pet her and much longer to get her more used to new people. She was worth every moment of work as she turned out to be the sweetest dog. She was always wagging her tail and looked like she was smiling.
She quickly became close to my brother’s Golden Retriever, Blake. She loved to swim with him and play with him. She was so funny, since she had cared for herself she liked to jump and pick fruit off the trees and she caught fish from the pond.
She did stop doing a lot of these things after Blake got lung cancer and died. She was very upset, she and my Golden Retriever, Shelley (Blake’s sister) seemed to be depressed for awhile. They both got better overtime but Emily never swam again. It was like that was their thing and she just wouldn’t do it with out him. Maybe he made her feel safe, I don’t know.
She wasn’t an easy dog to train and to be honest she never was that well trained haha. She was so scared you couldn’t push on her butt to show her sit, or hold her paw to show her to shake. I used Shelley to show her these things. I would tell Shelley to sit and praise her like crazy and give her a treat. We did this over and over until I could tell Emily to sit and she did it because she wanted what Shelley was getting. We did this for a few other tricks as well.
She had a tough life at times but we tried to give her a wonderful home and loved her to death. This dog would lick you more than any dog I have ever seen. She loved everyone she met. I will miss her terribly but I’m so glad I knew her. She showed me just how much dogs need our love and how important it is to rescue dogs.
When you are thinking about getting a dog, please remember dogs like Emily need you so please adopt rescue dog.
