We got her when she was a puppy. In fact the time line went something like this. Get married, buy a house, fence the back yard, and get a dog. We picked her up from a farmer outside of Billings.

We were only going to look at the puppies, not get one. John started picking up puppies left and right. When he picked her up she nuzzled her nose into his neck and whimpered and that was that. We affectionately said she was part alligator, part beaver, and part Houdini. She liked to sail past people at face level with a little snap of her mouth when they came over. As a puppy she was fast, she could bank on the walls of the house. We had a hard time keeping her in the back yard. She loved the snow and would hide her head and then lay down and roll around in it. She loved it. We would take her down the Yellowstone River to go swimming and she would swim out to us.

We would grab her collar and she would make a mad dash to the shore like she was saving us. John was really her favorite. We would play hide and seek with her and she'd tear around the house looking for John. She became a little depressed when she saw the baby swing out right before I had Job. She new what that swing meant - another little one around the house. Although she has loved each one of our kids - they all dropped food on the floor or left their plates within reach of her mouth. How could she not love that?

When we moved to Washington, John and Madison drove our only car out while the kids and I flew.

Our fence here wasn't built yet and so I lived in terror of the dog running down the mailman. By the time summer came we had a fence and gate built. The north side fence is 6 feet tall, the back fence about 4 feet. New neighbors had just moved in and we hadn't met them when they came over and said, "I think your dog was in our backyard." I groaned, oh no, we need to pooper scoop. Nope that wasn't it. It was worse. She had scaled the six foot fence and then dug out a 2 x 3' hole in their flower bed to get out of their yard!

I had forgotten how energetic she was. As an older dog she would greet people by wagging her tail and coming over to lick their legs but she wouldn't sail past their face any more. She didn't dig and she became quite deaf. In fact it became harder for her to climb stairs or to jump up on her little couch to look out the window.

She preferred to sleep in the garage instead of the house and she slept a lot. Last week she started to have all sorts of problems. I noticed that she had contracted worms. We took care of that but she wasn't getting better. She stopped eating. She would move about 20 feet and throw up. Then she was so exhausted that she would fall down and sleep for about an hour or so before doing the whole thing over again. We cried, we called the vet, we took her in the emergency animal clinic, we gave her morphine and arthritis medication. Finally on Friday we took her to our regular vet who confirmed what we knew was true. She was dying. John and I had already made our decision but it was one of the hardest of our lives. The doctor was incredible, he was very sensitive to us and gentle to Madison. We said our goodbyes and held her during her final moments. We could feel the pain leaving her body and knew we had made the right decision. We had her for 14 years and even through the heart aches, head aches and the pain in the butt moments we always loved her. Some day we will again have a dog but for now it is too soon. We love you Madison.