All good dogs go to heaven

We said good-bye to Reggie today. After several months of watching our formerly strong-as-an-ox dog dwindle down to fur and bones and struggling to get him to eat or drink anything for days now, we said good-bye. The girls went to a friends house and Ian and I drove him to the vet (Ian rode in the back so we could let the furry guy stick his head out the window on the way there, it was the happiest he had been in weeks.) No worries, he still tried to pick a fight with a pack of about 12 dogs in the entryway of the hospital, scrappy until the end.

Lucy has been sad off and on for a few days now but some of that is just because she knew how sad we were. She has already started asking about future pets. For now, we are content with remembering "Reggie, Reggie, he's our pet, he's the greatest, don't forget!" Here are our favorite memories of our favorite dog:

-Back it up- the booty was for scratching and he didn't care who you were, you were expected to scratch.

-The fact that he loved to lick the mixer beaters, just like a kid, when we made any sort of batter. Or the fact that turkey bacon and baked chicked would make him act like he had ants in his pants with excitement.

-Ears that rivaled Dumbo's

-The biggest sneezes, ever, many times followed by whole body shakes

-Faster than a cheetah, he knocked me clear into another atmosphere once when playing fetch

-Seeing him and Lucy looking out the window at the world below

-Reg running full speed into the glass door at Pops and Grandma's

-Coming home to find him having eaten all the molding in Ian's apartment, or photo albums, or lattice siding, or drywall

-His always knowing when Ian was out of town and coming and begging to sleep in the bed with me, on Ian's pillow.

-Sitting with his butt on the top stair and his legs on the stair below, watching the backyard and protecting us all from the evils of squirrels.

-Licking Lucy upside the face

-Closing him up in the downstairs kitchen when we first got him and were training him, only to realize that he had indeed escaped and snuck under our bed, scaring the living daylights out of Ian in the middle of the night.

-Doggie paddle days in Lexington. He loved it so much that he would exit the pool, vomit and then cannonball right back into the pool.

-He would run so fast and so far at once that he would have to make the largest, most amazingly fast loops to turn himself around. And he could jump, too. No ball was too high to try an catch mid-air, all while doing some crazy twist.

-When he swam several feet off the banks of the Potomac out to a couple of guys in a fishing boat so they could feed him a sandwich.

-His pink nose when he was a puppy

-After the ice storm when he would drag whole trees around the backyard

-Not waiting for Harper to leave her highchair, he would nuzzle his nose under her legs and behind to get at her scraps, she always laughed and giggled.

-Being the first to greet us, always, even when we were coming home from the hospital with Lucy or Harper when each of them was born.

We already miss him and he will always remind Ian and me of our time together before the kids came along. He was the one that was in the car with me when we left Lexington, left Pittsburgh and arrived in Virginia. He was my companion when I didn't know anyone in Pittsburgh and Ian was at school day and night and he was the one that kept me company and when I knew no one in Virginia and was home with Lucy. We met great friends because of him and explored new places with him. He was a great bud, a loyal protector and the funniest dog around.