I had always wanted a cocker spaniel when I was younger, then when I was 24 I found my little girl, Sharaya. She was in a litter of 9 cute buff colored cockers. I wanted to have a female in the hopes of some day maybe having more cockers myself, although that never happened, I thank God because I know I would never have wanted to give any of them away and would have raised them all myself. The litter only had 3 females, so I looked them over and when I saw her
I knew we should be together.
She had a large white spot on the right side of her noise with little dark frickles on it. It was love at first sight. I lived in Minnesota at the time but in 1989 Sharaya and I moved to Honolulu, we lived there for eleven years and I met my partner of now thirteen years, who also is a dog lover and brought a beautiful pomeranian into my life too. We moved to the New York area in June of 2000 for a job and now live in Hoboken, NJ.
I lost Sharaya on Saturday, November 16 at 5:00am. She had always been in great health and never had any serious problems with her health, we were very lucky.
This past six months she had started to really slow down, her kidneys were beginning to fail and she was having trouble controlling her blatter. We used huggies disposible pull-ups to help with her control problem, she never minded wearing them and acutally knew that when they were on she didn’t have to worry about having an accident.
She lost most of her hearing several years ago, although my partner likes to tease me by saying she had selective hearing and heard what she wanted too, I don’t know if that so or not but Sharaya and I were always able to communicate.
I walked Sharaya for the last time on Friday morning November 15, she was very weak and I could see she was failing very quickly. When I returned home from work that evening Sharaya was so weak she couldn’t move around at all and her breathing had gotten very deep and labored. I stayed with her throughout the whole night, I knew the end was coming very soon, by 5:00am on Saturday morning she lefted her head off my lap and looked at me one more time, laid her head back down, stretched her whole body and slipped away. It was one of the hardest things I have every had to experience, although I was very glad we spent those last hours together at home.
I don’t think I ever cried so much in my life, but I did and still am and miss her more than I ever imagined.
We took her remains to be cremated and had one of the nicest experiences while there. The lady at the veteranarian office looked at Sharaya’s record, saw she was 18 years old and then looked at me with tears in her eyes and simply said, “Sharaya had a good run.” For some reason hearing that really consoled me so much, I realized that yes Sharaya did have a good run and I was one of the most blessed people in the world for having her for so many wonderful years.
Sharaya is very missed and has left a large void in my life and my home, she will never be forgotten. Thanks for all those wonderful years Sharaya and all those wonderful memories, you were the best friend and companion anyone could ever have wished for.
Love, Daddy
| Shararya |
| Don Meyer |