We Miss You

Over the years our family has had our share of pets:

-Otis (our 1st dog)
-Rex & Rico (iguanas)
-Wally& Chester (horses)
-Various fish and snails (In the end we had to "flush" the yellow snail because it ate all of the fish &    escaped out of the aquarium twice)
-Carter (cat)
-Daisy (dog)
-Shortleg (African bullfrog)
-Casper (kitty)
-Casper 2 (kitty)
-Pork Chops (Daisy's puppy)

As much fun and joy these pets have brought us...so also comes loss and sadness when they die.  Our latest loss is Daisy.  She was easily the biggest sweetheart in the whole world.  We lost her back in January, but it has taken me this long to write about it because we have been so sad and devastated.

The story is so bizarre and disturbing.  I came home from picking Quincy up from preschool one afternoon in January (the 30th, 1 day before Sambo's birthday) and started fixing her lunch.  My next door neighbor Tasha came running in my front door completely frantic.  She was yelling that Daisy was in the back of the garbage truck!  I ran outside and the truck was just leaving our street.  I looked at how big and tall it was and thought my sweet neighbor had gone completely nuts (she had just had a baby a few days earlier and was very sleep deprived)!  But I didn't see Daisy anywhere and the look on Tasha's face convinced me she was in there.  I caught up to the garbage truck at a nearby stop sign and a gentleman had waved him down because Tasha had told this random man to stop the truck.  I didn't see or hear any sign of Daisy being in the back of the truck.  The driver looked at me like I was insane and that there is NO WAY my dog is in there.  He climbed the tall ladder to look in the back and didn't see anything.  This was maybe two minutes max from the time Tasha had looked out her upstairs window and had seen Daisy jumping around in the back on top of the garbage while the truck was emptying the garbage can in front of our house.  At that point she was alive and well.  But then now there was no sign of her. The driver told me he was heading straight to the landfill and that he would look for her when he dumped the garbage.  He called later and told me he didn't see anything.  Quincy had witnessed the whole fiasco.  Throughout the day she kept asking me if we got Daisy out of the garbage truck yet?  Knowing how a garbage truck works, BS and I decided to tell the kids that she got carried away in a garbage truck and that hopefully she either jumped out at some point and found a new family that loves and cares for her, or that she is very happy living at the landfill eating as much food as she wants.
We got calls from Draper City for the next week because everyone was so concerned.  The question is how did she end up in the garbage truck?  It would be impossible for her to climb up that huge truck.  So was she in a garbage can?  And how did she get in the huge garbage can without tipping it over?  She is a 75 pound dog!  And why didn't the truck driver see a 75 pound dog get dumped into his truck?     Completely baffling.  I bawled for 3 days.  BS was super upset too.  Except that we had to put on a happy face for Sambo's birthday and his party.  We didn't have the heart to tell him and the other kids about Daisy until the day after.  Then Sambo said, "That's why I don't like pets...because they die!"

Whatever happened, we miss her dearly and loved her so much.  We were lucky to have her for 6 years.  She went on many adventures with our family and was an awesome pet.  Here are a few pics of her over the years.

The day we got brought her home

February 2006

Hanging out with Millie, listening to her troubles

Just part of the family

Daisy LOVED to swim and play fetch.  She would have fetched the ball until she collapsed if we let her!

She was a fabulous Mama to her litter of 10 puppies!  She let Chops hang on her neck and nurse until he was as big as her!

She was also known to be a little Rascal at times - here she went snooping in somebody's garbage and came home with the lid stuck on her.  This is how we found her.  Still don't know who's it is!

The only thing that has helped a little is that we still have her puppy Chops with us.  And somehow he has turned into quite a good dog in the last six months.  Probably something to do with that he is now two years old and mellowed out.  He's taking after his Mom, just as sweet as he could be.

But wait.
And then there's Casper 2.
We went to Moab for Spring break and we came home to find that Casper 2 had left...and never came back.  Bobcat?  Eagle?  Suncrest isn't the best place for an outdoor cat I guess.  Despite the fact that he was a cat (BS and I are not cat lovers), he was a pretty cool cat.  He lasted about a year at our house but maybe, just maybe, he has also found a new home with milder winters and a family that will let him inside more.  We just feel bad for Quincy and her buddy Conner.  They loved this cat so much.  Like so much.  He entertained and played with Q for hours everyday.  And he didn't mind the dogs.  They liked each other.  Something funny about him is that on the occasion when he was let inside, he would always jump up into BS's bathroom sink and lay there!  These pics were taken on different days: