My husband and I first met Abby when she was almost 4 years old at our local Humane Society. She was so beautiful with her auburn coat and her big brown eyes. I knew from the moment that I met her that I wanted her. We came home and talked about it, as we had intended to get a small dog and Abby was 100 pounds. She had a special look and I could tell she needed a loving home. My husband went and adopted her while I was working as a surprise. We soon found out that she was scared of so many things such as getting on the couch, getting on the bed and she would look at us like we were going to scold her or hit her. After about 2 weeks of having her my husband finally got her to realize it was okay to get on the couch and bed. If you are going to have a pet that you truly love, you let them be beside you and love you the way it was meant to be. She was already house broke when we got her and she would walk to the door when she needed to go potty. The first week we would take her on a lead to get used to her new forever home. She would run and play like she had never been able to do this. I knew we were in love. She loved to go bye bye, so if we went somewhere far we took her with us. She traveled with us to Michigan, Chicago, Branson, Lake of the Ozarks. Where we went she went. She was here when all the grand kids would come over and they would climb on her and love and her. She was soon realizing that she was the queen in our home. The last couple of years her health had been getting worse. She had a couple fatty tumors that we had removed about 1 1/2 years ago. After that she developed another very large one under her front leg, but the vet said she would not make it through another surgery as she was older and weaker. Arthritis was sitting in, along with her eye site getting bad. About 5 months ago we had to take her to the vet. We woke up one morning and she was acting really strange, gazing into no where and couldn't walk right, so they put her on some meds. and she got better, but never the way she was. For the past few months the only thing she was doing was eating, drinking, sleeping and going out to go potty. It was a chore just to get her outside to go potty as she just wanted to sleep. My husband and I starting finding more knots on her. They were popping up every where. We had to make a decision and soon, so we decided to do the humane thing and have to put to sleep. There was no way we were gonna let our baby girl suffer. We just put her down on Wednesday 6-16-13 at 4:50 pm. I have cried since and I feel so guilty. I loved and cared for that baby like she was a child. Why is it so hard to get over losing a pet? I kept a lock of her hair and we decided to have her cremated. Some people think it is crazy I know, but I am finding it so hard to let her go. We had her for almost 10 years and losing her has turned my world upside down. I am grieving terribly. I don't know if I will ever get over this.