The picture for my blog and YouTube are with Noel, the first dog who truly loved me.  We’ve always had dogs, but they were always more drawn to Rich than to me.  When we put our last dog to sleep, it was an awful experience for Rich, (I worked that day) and he never wanted another pet.  He said he couldn’t do that again.  It took the vet three tries to put our dog to sleep.  Rich had a friend that said his biggest regret was not being there when they put his dog to sleep.  He told Rich that he was his best friend and in his last moments, he wasn’t there for him.  That really struck home with Rich so when they our dog went in, Rich was holding him tightly.  He couldn’t get past those last few minutes and it took us six months before he would consider a dog.  It was Christmas and I really wanted a puppy and I was very specific about what I wanted.  I wanted a female yellow lab and I was going to call her Noel.  When we went to see her, they had photos of the father to Noel.  He was dressed up for Halloween and he was the most handsome yellow lab we had ever seen.  When they brought Noel to us, we knew she was ours.  She was so sweet natured and had the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen on a dog.  She had horrible separation anxiety so when we went to work, she barked.  By the time she was two, we knew we needed to make a change and found Aggie, our first golden retriever.  She also had the most handsome father we had ever seen.  Noel and Aggie were inseparable.  If we took one to the vet, the other fretted until we got home.  They were together for thirteen years.  Noel passed the day after these photographs were taken.  She was 15 1/2 years old when she died.  That was in 2014, but sometimes a dog leaves such a hole in your heart that you want her with you always.  I put the photos up so my best friend could be a part of my YouTube experience.  She left a big hole for Aggie as well.  About three years before Noel passed, the vet told us that our dogs were very connected (which we already knew) and that Aggie might not make it through Noel’s passing.  She said we should consider getting another dog for her, which is why we got Bella.  We’re not referencing the Twilight series, her AKC name is Parker’s Bella Mia, which is Italian for “my beautiful.”  She’s been a great companion for Aggie who really struggled when we lost Noel.   About two weeks after Noel passed, in the middle of the night, Aggie let out a howl like her heart had broken.  I’ve never heard anything like it and hope I never do again.  I cried the rest of the night.  Aggie is now 15, and we’ve started to worry about Bella being alone, thus the reason we bought Honey.  Isn’t it strange that the only dog we bought for ourselves was Noel and every dog after has been for our dogs?  We must be abnormal.  We never had children so our dogs have filled that void for us.  We still miss Noel and her weird quirky ways.  She was very routine oriented and every morning went to the refrigerator, waited for me to open the bottom drawer and retrieved her apple (that drawer only housed their apples and we never used it for anything else) .  She and Aggie ate an apple every day of their lives.  When Noel died, Aggie stopped eating apples.  Noel loved tomatoes so we planted grape tomato plants for her.  She’d wait until the tomatoes turned red and then she’d “shop” for them, going from plant to plant, until she found tomatoes that were ready to eat.  She’d come back into the house and her whole face would be yellow from the pollen on the plants.  When she was a puppy, she’d lay on my lap with her face pointed toward my face and her tail by my knees.  Until her death, she would  lie on me in the same way as she did when she was a puppy.   And she loved to lay beside me on the bed if I held her foot, and she’d lay like that for hours.  She was a sweet dog and I wanted to take a few minutes to remember her with you so you’d understand the photos and my love for this wonderful dog.

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