Dakota…For 14 years, 10 months, and 20 days the heart just kept growing. In the end the poor, debilitated body could not hold it any longer. We prayed for months that he would just go peacefully in his sleep, but we came to realize it would not happen because that heart was just too big and too healthy to quit…so we had to let him go. The tears are not for him – he’s in a better, pain free, peaceful place with his buddies Mackie and Moka. The tears are for Rick and I who will now have to go on without his precious being next to us in this earthly existence. Dakota defined love…love for us, Fran, our other dogs, our cats, all people, all places, and in the end the oversized rented couch that he rested his tired, arthritic body on all day long in our Grants, NM apartment.
Oh how blessed we are to have found him as a 3-legged puppy at Special Pals in Katy, Texas. There was never anything handicapped about him. He was up for any activity our pet family was doing. Our special boy – from Houston to Pecan Grove in Richmond, Tx. to Ruidoso, NM and finally to Grants, NM where he was my sole companion on many days as I took on a new, scary career as a Special Ed teacher to 8th graders. I never would have made it without him. Now Rick and I must continue the journey without him, forever filled with joyous memories,
our hearts bigger for having known him.