Meatloaf, steak, chicken, many many treats, hugs, tears, currently not many smiles and certainly no laughs. All of these everything are due to the fact that later this afternoon, Abbey THE dog will be making finishing her final lap and crossing the finish line. To say I am a mess would be a dramatic understatement. She morphed very quickly from the dog I didn’t want and was finally worn down to get, to my buddy. Every single time I have walked into the house since March of 2012 when we got her, I have been greeted with excitement and pure joy.

Back in CT she would always run into the bedroom, jump on the bed and I would have to rub her head furiously and repeat “all right, all right, all right”….and then she’d jump down and want to go out. When I would go out for a run, Sue would tell me that she sat by the window and waited for me to come home, sometimes running to the door before I was even visible. Even now, with her mobility significantly hampered, I’ve been told that when I go out she waits for me by the garage door until she hears the car pull in. Last night, she almost knocked my glass out of my hand with her head as she wanted it rubbed.

We have walked together, even before my hip replacements and weight loss though it was much harder for me then. We spent time in the dog park in New Canaan since it was hard for me to walk her then, but she was not the best behaved there. After my various surgeries and weight loss we would go on 3 or 4 mile strolls every day after my morning part time teaching. Every kid knew about Abbey THE dog and always referred to her by that name, not simply Abbey. Her picture was passed around at parent night along with my human children as was my practice from the first year when I started at Greenwich High, my opening statement was always “I have to look at your kids for 180 days the least you can do is look at mine for 10 minutes”. It was the best ice breaker ever and the addition of Abbey THE dog to the rota beginning in 2012 just added to it. She accompanied me to pick up pizza (one of her favorite foods ever) when Pepe’s opened in Fairfield. Beginning in March of 2020 with the lockdown we were together 24-7 and she really got used to it and us to her. She slept most of the way on the relocation trip to SC (courtesy of some trazadone) and has thoroughly enjoyed having a fully fenced in yard for the last 3.5+ years. She still didn’t like when we left her for trips but luckily, we found the best, most caring pet/house sitter, Jaelynn who she also loved and who loved her. Her excitement when we came home was as joyful today as it was at the outset.

Abbey made it through major snowstorms (with me digging paths in the back yard for her), hurricanes (she and Sue were curled up in blankets when we lost power for superstorm Sandy and the house dropped to 50 degrees), heat, fireworks, and politicians knocking on the door. There was not a delivery person she wouldn’t bark at, in fact, back in CT one day, while she was at pet daycare since the house was being worked on, our UPS guy rang the bell (he didn’t usually, he just left stuff) and when I answered the door and asked if I needed to sign anything he said “no, I didn’t hear Abbey barking and just wanted to check to see if she was ok”… She had her moments…on one Superbowl Sunday while being taken out, she pulled Sue down causing Sue to crack her head on the slate steps on the deck and causing her to get multiple staples. Once, while I was in HSS having my hip replaced, it was snowy and Sue slipped right out of her boots, and Abbey ran away with her 20′ leash attached….finally wrapping itself around a tree. Overall, though, for the past 13 years she has been an absolute love.

It has been very, very hard over the past few months to watch the decline and while we were always aware the race was being concluded, the day was never that day. She has increasingly spent more and more time alone in a room she never went into since we’ve been here, almost as if she was preparing US for being without her. This morning it was pretty clear that even standing was becoming far too difficult and we decided, through tears and doubts that today is, in fact, that day. We have scheduled a home visit and, while it is atypically cold for us here, it is sunny and we hope to allow her to spend her last moments in the yard she so loves…It’s going to be a very long time before either of us can fully accept our home without her but we do really believe (even me, the house agnostic) that she will be greeted on the other side of the bridge by her former roommates at West Rocks Road. Satchmo, Molly and Handsome.