Princess Samantha Pants

On Saturday, August 26, sometime around 6 p.m., Princess Samantha went to sleep for the last time.

We waited all day for the vet to call us with an update. When she did, it wasn't good. She wasn't getting better, they suspected a slew of problems raging against her little body. We knew what we had to do but didn't want to. At 4:10 pm, the vet explained over the phone that they could do everything and anything to make her better, but there was no guarantee.

By 5 pm we were at the hospital, seeing her again in the kennel, with her cone, sad, lonely, hooked up to catheters and shivering, made the decision for us.They took her off her tubes and brought her into a room for us to be with her. We let her sit on the big comfy couch, on my lap, and she licked our cheeks. She put on a good front for us, but we knew it wouldn't last. We stayed with her until the end. I couldn't let her be alone, and hubby didn't want her to watch him walk out of the room.

Samantha was a great dog and my sweet girl. The silence in our house is deafening. No more clickity-clickity of her happy bounce. No more snorts in the middle of the night. No more shoes licked. No more underoos attacked. No more matched set of beagle trouble. No more joy. Not today.