Ally

November 24 will always be a painful day in our lives. But my hope is that one day we will instead get to remember August 5. This is the day we adopted the apple of our eye… We will forever be grateful for having Ally in our lives. She has made our journey so much better. And to this day, I still aim at being more like her. She forgot all the bad things that happened to her before she joined our family. She loved unconditionally. She pulled ahead – and she really did pull! She was such a sweet girl that made people that didn’t even like dogs fall in love with her…
We know that the pain will one day subside. But the memories never will.
Rest in peace my love.

We want to thank you all for being part of her life and for your support since November 24. A special thought to Lynn Doolittle for sharing her animal knowledge, Mark for giving her all the care she needed (and nothing she didn’t!), Pat & Ian and the Farq family for looking after her when she could not travel with us.

And because right now I need to talk about her…
Ally had a full life. She died at 134 human years (16 ½).
For those who didn’t know. Ally was adopted. When she came to us at about 4, she had had a broken rib and was afraid of feet and metal. Clearly, she had a tough life. She quickly realized that there would be nothing but love in this family. And she overcame her fears. She was a brave girl. I think we can all learn from that.
She was a cancer survivor, trained for a half marathon, she camped and hiked all over Ontario and New York State, she was my support when I was grieving the loss of my father and was sick (even picking my up off the floor at one time).
She was a total nut outside; outrunning greyhounds! And a 40lbs lapdog inside. When camping she was so overstimulated that we had to put her on our laps so that she could chill. We eventually bought her her own camping chair – you can imagine the looks we got! But she was happy, so we didn’t care.
She loved winter. There wasn’t a snow fall she didn’t love. Even when, in Montreal (of course), she found herself in shoulder deep snow in my mother’s backyard. What a thrill!
She loved going to the off-leash park in Port Elgin. It was so heartwarming to see her run in the high grass (seeing nothing but a bobbing head here and there) that for years, we planned our trips around the same area so that we could bring her to this park.
She loved dried duck feet! It was totally gross. But she loved it! We bought them (God knows why) at this local farmers’ market in Haliburton. They came in a small brown bag. For months, she got very excited at the sight of any brown bag.
She was a part of our family. Every day we miss her…