Thank you for eating the monsters!

When I was growing up, my family always had a dog. From the big white german shepherd, to the little white poodle, to the ferocious looking (but super sweet) doberman, the family dog was always an integral part of my childhood memories.

I couldn't wait until I got older so that I could have a dog of my own. I always knew that I would have a yellow dog, and that I would name her "Daisy" after my favorite flower.

About a year after I moved to Virginia to go to grad school with my now husband, Jud, I started my campaign to convince him to let me have a puppy. I used all of the usual techniques -- I'll feed her, I'll train her, I'll take her to all of her vet appointments. Please, please, please, can we get a puppy? Can we? Can we? Can we??? His roommates were very helpful with my campaign -- they suggested that now was the perfect time to get a dog, while we had flexible schedules and roommates who could help us take care of her. Once we graduated and went out into the "real world," we would be working long hours, and we wouldn't have time to housebreak a puppy.

It turns out that Jud had never really had a dog when he was growing up, so he needed some time to warm up to the idea of a pet. Eventually, he agreed that we could LOOK at some dogs. JUST LOOK.

We started off at the local animal shelter, where I wanted to take home every dog that I saw. Not because they were perfect, but because it made me sad to see them in those little cages.

After a few failed shelter trips and some further discussion, we agreed that we wanted a yellow lab, so we started looking at local breeders. I found one in our area, and the dogs were reasonably priced, so we went off to LOOK. JUST LOOK.

As soon as Daisy came around the corner, I knew that she was the puppy for us. She strutted around like she owned the place, unlike her meek little sister, who cowered in the corner of the dusty outdoor fenced-in area that was their home. We whisked her away from the trailer park (where her former owner informed us that she had named her "Sara Lee" -- yes, like the pastries), and straight home into the bathtub, where we discovered that she was actually a much lighter shade of yellow than we had originally thought.

The first night that she was home with us, she was whimpering in her crate, and Jud (the formerly reluctant pet owner) uttered the fateful words: "Can somebody small and yellow come and sleep with us?" I warned him that when she was older and weighed 80 pounds, he would regret this day. But she was cute, so I agreed, and she snuggled right in.

Daisy quickly became a part of the family, and everyone who met her fell in love with her. She was so cute, and so sweet, and so friendly -- it was hard not to become smitten with her! Our parents thought that we were crazy for getting a dog, but as soon as we brought her home the first time, they changed their minds. Daisy made herself comfortable on the floor in front of my dad's armchair, and he would pet her with his feet while he rocked, and sneak her snacks when he thought that we weren't looking. My mother-in-law once saved our dog from what could have been a very unfortunate encounter with a skunk, and Daisy rewarded her by deeming her to be the "person of honor" in that household, always sitting at her feet whenever they were in the same room together.

When Daisy was nine months old, she started limping when she ran, and her front legs started cracking whenever she walked. Our regular vet didn't seem to see this as a problem, so after two months of arguing with him, we decided to bring her to the Virginia Tech Vet School, where she received a complete work over from a gaggle of eager vet students and residents. They diagnosed her with arthritis, and they recommended surgery on her two front legs.

The surgery ended up being scheduled on the Friday that Jud had made arrangements to whisk me away for a surprise weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he planned to propose to me. He knew that if we went through with the surgery, I would spend the entire weekend worrying about the dog. So he made up an excuse to talk with the vet privately, and then he begged the doctor to re-schedule. I didn't think twice about the call that I later received from the Vet School, asking to postpone the surgery due to a "large animal emergency" (whatever that might mean!). I was just happy to delay the inevitable pain for a little while longer! Daisy came through her surgery with flying colors, although she never really ran and jumped like other labs that we knew, and she tended to tire easily.

As we neared completion of our graduate programs, Jud was offered a job in Upstate New York, and we decided to accept. He still had a dissertation to complete and a defense to prepare, so I was tasked with travelling to our new home to find a place to live. I checked out a few "dog friendly" apartments, and I decided that the conditions in some of the animal shelters that I had seen would have been better for us!

Eventually, I found the perfect townhouse. It was in the town where we wanted to live, the price was right, and the master bedroom had a HUGE walk-in closet -- perfect! There was only one catch -- no dogs allowed. I convinced the landlord to hold off on his decision until he had actually met our Daisy. One full-body wag, and he was sold -- the place was ours!

The weekend that we scheduled our move was the same weekend that Jud had planned to defend his dissertation, so Daisy and I drove to New York on our own to meet the movers. We spent the night before the move in the empty townhouse, and after the first strange noise, I called her over to come and sleep next to me so that I wouldn't be so freaked out (who knew that toilets could make such creepy noises!)

This was the first of many times that Daisy kept me company while Jud was away on business. When he went to China for two weeks, she sat on the couch with me and let me hug her while I cried. When we moved to our new house, she was in charge of checking the basement any time I heard strange noises down there (why is it that houses only make strange noises when you're home alone?).

Every night, she would wait by the front door for Jud to come home. He had to start having talks with her before he went away, telling her when he would be back, and explaining to her that she couldn't wait by the door every night, because it made me sad. She seemed to understand, and she learned to only wait on the nights when he was actually due to come home (how she knew which night this was, I will never know, but she was never wrong).

After our son, Max, was born, I am sad to say that Daisy did not get as much attention as she had in the past. In fact, there were a few nights when one of us would let her out to "get busy," and we would become so consumed with the crying baby that we would forget to let her back in again. We would then hop in the car and take the crying baby for a ride around the neighborhood, where we would eventually find the wandering puppy and take her (and the now sleeping baby) safely back home again.

Despite this, Daisy never seemed to resent the presence of the new noisy funny-smelling person in our home. In fact, she decided that it was her job to protect Max like he was one of her own. When visitors would come to the house to hold the baby, she would plant herself right at their feet, not letting anyone out of her sight with "her boy."

Her reward for all of her hard work came in the form of Max's first words. Not "Mommy." Not "Daddy." Not even "baba" (his word for bottle) or "shashi" (his word for pacifier). No, Max's first intelligible words were "Hi Day-shee." He, too, was smitten.

When she was six years old, Daisy tore a ligament in one of her rear legs, and she again required surgery. This was followed by twelve weeks of intensive outpatient rehab, which consisted of us walking her slowly around the neighborhood for gradually increasing distances. She re-learned to walk right around the same time that Max was taking his first steps, and the three of us were quite the sight -- walking slowly up and down the street, a limping dog on one side of me, and a bumbling toddler on the other side. She made a complete recovery, but we never really allowed her to run around for long periods of time again, for fear that she might tear the ligament on her other leg.

When Max was three years old, he developed a fear of monsters. There was no convincing him that there were no monsters, because he was absolutely 100% positive that the monsters were real and that they were lurking in his dark bedroom at night. He insisted on sleeping in our bed so that he would be safe, but he also insisted on wiggling around and kicking us all night long. Desperate for sleep, we turned to the dog, who didn't need to get up to go to work in the morning. She was more than happy to sleep on the foot of his comfy bed, and he accepted without question our explanation that "Daisy eats monsters." He felt safe, she felt comfortable, and we all finally got some much needed sleep!

After Bella was born, Daisy was back on guard duty again. She sniffed every person who walked into the house, and she never let anyone out of her sight when that person was holding the baby. Bella rewarded her by growing up to drop bits of food on the ground, and then giggling when Daisy would lick up her offerings. "No people food!" we would scold the two of them, but they would wait until we stepped out of the room, and then Bella would feed Daisy her leftover bits of donut. Joy!

A couple of months ago, we noticed that Daisy, the perpetually hungry dog, was not eating her food. We took her to the vet, who ran some tests and informed us that her liver was failing. We tried some different medications, but nothing seemed to help, and her appetite got worse and worse. She also seemed to be groaning a lot more frequently, and she was having difficulty finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. Eventually, when we were down to feeding her donuts and potato chips, because she wouldn't eat anything else, we called the vet and told her that the time had come to let Daisy go.

We explained to the kids what was happening, and we gave them the weekend to say goodbye to her. Max asked me to take a picture of him and his sister with the dog, and then he hugged Daisy and thanked her for eating all of his monsters, and for always making him feel safe. Bella gave her a hug and a kiss, and then they both went off to school. When they came home later that night, Daisy was no longer with us.

Even though I was with her when she passed, and even though I know that she is gone, I can't help but look for her wagging body every time I walk around a corner in the house. I still think that I'm hearing the sounds of her toenails tapping on the hardwood floors, or her legs cracking as she walks from room to room. Eleven years is a long time, and Daisy was our first baby.

There is a gap in our life right now, and I'm sad that Daisy is no longer there to fill it. It is especially sad now that Bella is reaching the age where she is starting to be afraid of monsters, and there is no Daisy here to snuggle up in bed with her and protect her.

I am glad for the memories that I have of her, and I am sad for the moments that she will miss.

I imagine her in some sort of Dog Heaven now, running freely and without any pain, like she never could when she was here with us. I also imagine her spending some time with my father, who passed away in June, sitting at his feet while he pets her and feeds her snacks.

And if there is anyone up there in Heaven who is feeling scared or afraid, I would like to advise them to seek out my dog for comfort.

Because Daisy eats monsters.