My story begins in mid Steptember of 2007. My husband and I had adopted a beautiful puppy we named Brick just early August. He is mix Lab/German Shepard. He needed a buddy and I had gotten word from a co-worker of mine that a friend of hers had some Doberman puppies that was ready to be adopted and if we wanted one, she had the runt at her house that day. Well we went to my co-workers house and first time we saw him we fell in love! He was standing on the top of her stairs barking and moving backward with his floppy uncropped ears and we just had to take him home. We came home, unloaded him from the car and brought him inside and he met our first dog who was 12yrs old at the time and she didn't want nothing to do with another new puppy. Brick came around the corner and immediately displayed how dominant he was even though they were born weeks apart. We decided to name our little dobie puppy Ninja. We thought it would fit his personally well because he was very timid and seemed to walk in silence around the house. He didn't want to be noticed and from what I knew of ninjas that was how they operated. They would stike but you would never know they were coming. Brick and Ninja became the best of buddies. Ninja came out of his shell and he became the goofiest dog I've ever had the pleasure of adopting. He had strange behaviors. The whole ninja concept went out the window. He loved to give kisses after kisses but my husband and I would constantly turn him away because he kept one of his awful behaviors he developed as a puppy and that was to eat his own poop. So kisses were forever be out of the question. Don't know why did kept doing it. We spoke to vet and did our own research and basically figured out that he must have liked the way it tasted. Besides that, he grew up to be mommy's cuddle bug and a great great guard dog. His guard dog instincts were spot on and he had a very scary, intimidating deep low bark that would send anyone wanna-be burglar running for the hills.
Well as our lives went on and the two new puppies got older, they adjusted to our rules and how our household did things. We grew to accept his good and bad behaviors as he did ours. In mid 2010, after the initial recession hit, people were still trying to dig themselves out of debt, our landlords gave us word that due to tough economic times, they would need to move back into the house we were currently residing in. We were crushed and devistated but we got on the grind and started to try and save some money to move out.
In mid November of 2010, we let the dogs come in from the deck and Ninja and Brick ran inside like they normally do. Ninja rushed in and jumped on the couch and I was playing with him. Got him to turn over on his back and as I'm petting him, my husband joined me in the fun. Minutes into the play time, Ninja lets out this cry. It was a cry like if he was in pain. It was short but definitely a cry. My husband and I both jumped back and thought maybe he had hurt his front leg because he looked like he was holding it up. I then told him to get down and he rolled off of his back and onto the floor and he started to walk and then ran off like nothing happened. So we both just brushed it off like it was nothing.
The next day my husband and I went to work like normal. I made it home first that day and let the dogs outside. When I let the dogs back inside the house, Ninja threw up what looked like the outter lining of three little squeeky tennis balls that we buy for them. Then shortly after that my husband came home and Ninja threw up another pile of some tennis ball lining. We decided to pick up all the tennis balls that the dogs had taken outside because we figure if he's outside he simply won't have any to chew. When he's inside the house we would be able to keep an eye on him better. Well at dinner time, Ninja didn't touch his dinner. The next day and the day after that, he didn't eat. So he had gone three days witout eating but he consistantly drank water. We were really concern at the fact that he didn't eat for three days and he started to vomit more frequently but because he hasn't eaten, it was just a couple of small piles of water. We were in the middle of looking for another place to live. We had at the time, enough money for the first/last/securty deposit on a new place. While we were trying to keep an eye on his situation, we were also having to deal with running out of time on our current place and trying to lock down a new house for our family. Then the place that we had submitted an app for wanted to meet with us because they were interested renting their place to us. So we were stuck. Should we go ahead and meet with the home owners and put the money down or should we risk loosing the house and take Ninja to the vet because he wasn't eating and vomiting. We put off the meeting till the next day and wanted to see if Ninja improved. That night he ate his dinner. We were estatic! The next day we met with the home owners. Wrote them a check for first/last/pet deposit and arranged payments of the security deposit. When we got home, Ninja threw up his dinner. Three or four days later it had progressed so quickly downward, we rushed him to the animal ER after he had threw up what looked like red wine. We didn't have $1500-$1700 to give him the "intense care" that he needed that we chose to do the humane thing and relieve him of his pain. The doctor said even with the intense care he wasn't confident that Ninja would pull through. That Ninja was basically dying. He had some intestinal condition. He was bleeding from the inside and that from the state that Ninja was in when we brought him in, he would not make it the night. We came in close to 8pm or a little after 8pm and we put him down around 8:45pm. My husband and I didn't want him to suffer another minute. He was three years old and it was December 3rd, 2010.
Today is March 19th 2011 and I still cry when I think of how much I miss that guy. I've had dreams of him shortly after he passed on and the first dream was that I was carrying him because he was sick and my husband and I was running down the sidewalk trying to find a vet hospital because we knew he was going to die. A couple of dreams after that I would dream that Ninja wasn't playing with his brother or sister and I kept trying to get him to go over to them so he could play and in my dream I finally realize that the reason he's not going over to them and it was like they were coming over to Ninja was because Ninja is really not here. In my dream I realized that Ninja is dead. One night I missed him so much that I cried really hard again and I was talking to him in my bedroom and telling him how sorry I was that I decided to use the money to put down on a house and not to take him to the vet. I kept telling him that I was sorry and that I missed him so much. He must have heard because that night I dreamt that I was playing with him and he was being his silly goofy self but instead of running around and doing his funny scrunched up face look, he actually would stand on his two hind legs and I was holding his two front legs. He was putting his scrunch face next to my face and I was laughing and laughing and in the background I can hear my husband tell me "make him do that again! That's so funny. Do it again!" And that was all I remembered in that dream. He came back to see me again and I took it like, my little Ninny coming back and saying "mommy, I'm still here and it's okay. Don't be sad. When you think of me, smile or laugh." It held me for several weeks. Until I would start to think of my guilt again. At the end of the day, that was what I kept struggling with. I felt like I made the decision to "choose" the house over fixing Ninja and the house that we ended up renting is very nice. Has a fenced in yard that Ninja would have loved! In our old house we had a huge front yard but no fence. We had a big deck that we would let the dogs loose on and that was it so with the new house having a big nice fenced in back yard, we kind of got it with the intentions of getting it "for Ninja". So for that fact that we moved in and we did not have our Ninja just crushed me and I started to resent the house. I had a hard time enjoying the house.
My husband accepted the loss of Ninja and was settling in fine and I just couldn't. I didn't know how to. I finally admitted it to him and he told me "It's not your fault that Ninja died. WE DIDN'T KILL HIM. YOU DIDN'T KILL HIM. You can't take that burden on because it's not yours to take." He said all the right things but I still didn't hear him. I started to become withdrawn, dipressed almost. I bought a memorial cross for him, in memory of him and I look at it at least once a day.
My husband started to notice my changes and as a loving and caring husband he recently came to me and pleaded that I "come back". That he missed his best friend. That if I continued on this path of self blame that it could be the demise of our marriage. This was the third time he said those words to me and I finally heard him.
A co-worker of mine suggested to me that buying an "I love You" balloon and releasing it to heaven helps her with all the pets that she'd lost and maybe it'll help me. Well today, March 19, 2011 I bought a balloon. I haven't released it yet. I was going to do that after writing this out. But before I sat down tonight to type this out we started talking again about saying goodbye to Ninja and letting him go. My husband touched on the whole guilt issue and with his help we both figured out that my problem with not being able to let Ninja go has NOTHING to do with Ninja but has everything to do with forgiving myself. It goes back to blaming myself for not deciding to take Ninja to the vet earlier. But as he took me through step by step what actually happened and how we made decisions based off of how Ninja responded, it was clear. I'm blaming myself for a decision that at the time we made it, Ninja seemed to be getting better. So I did nothing wrong and I need not to blame myself anymore. That I need to forgive myself once and for all. That our sweet Ninja is waiting for his mommy to forgive herself so that he can finally proceed on the path to God. That God had simply recalled one of his little Angels. That God was missing Ninja too and who am I to deny God of his Angel.
When my husband said that, I broke out into more tears and I think those tears were tears of relief. I finally exhaled. I finally felt empty! Almost 50 pounds lighter.
It's okay to miss him and I know that he's forever with me. I know that Ninja's no longer in pain so now when I think of him I can just smile. Fact is, I still have my husband and two other dogs that still need me to be here for them. I love Ninja and will always miss him. I can smile because I know there's another Angel watching over me. My husband said that in honor of our sweet Ninja, we need to live like he lived which was "Live hard and love hard,,,,,even when you stank." Because boyyyyyyyyy, for some reason, he stank all the time! Baths would last him maybe a week and a half and then the oils in his skin would smell and because Dobermans had really short fur, it didn't take long for us to smell him.

I think I'm on my way to healing. With my husband and my two other dogs, I will be okay. We are trying to prepare for another loss because my first dog BooBear is 14yrs old and will be turning 15 in September. It's too bad we will out live most of our fur babies. But to honor them we will continue to adopt new best fur friends.
That's my story.

Kou