[This is the start of that “most eventful week of my life.”]
On Monday, we did the unthinkable; put down our Weimaraner, Amber. I don’t want to touch on that day too much as we should instead celebrate her life, but it was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
We received Amber in early 1995 [I think?] as we were promised a dog when we made our move to New Orleans. That move never did happen [Dad got a job here with just a few weeks to go… Damn, we had a sweet house there and I would have been the best runners in the state], but we were pretty set on getting a dog, so we did.
Like most dogs of her breed, she was full of energy, incredibly athletic, and absolutely loved her owners.
Even for a while after she lost some control of her hind legs, she’d still manage to jump on just about anyone who walked in the door; we never could get a handle on training her from doing that.
On the athletic side, one of my [sadly] more vivid memories is a blistering [literally] day I took her on a run of about three miles on asphalt. I noticed a bit of limp in her gait, looked to see if she had stepped on something, but to my horror I instead saw the skin had more or less melted off her paws. She was in serious pain… I never did take her on much of a run after that, but until she was about 12 or 13, she could still beat me up the driveway (it’s about 100m).
And the love. Kisses were plentiful, and you would never find her more than a foot or two away from one of us. If she was forced to stay away [for visitors, for a nice meal, whatever], there would be nonstop wimpering, which brings up another funny thing about her… she never did bark. Just squeals and wimpers. Funny dog.
She was also the well-traveled dog. She went all over the state with us when I used to run in high school, and also spent quite a bit of time down in North Carolina. While she didn’t care for the water (and she was a water-dog; they have webbed feet), she did thoroughly enjoy the beach (the sand and birds, primarily).
Amber, Ghini, Geen, Ambergeen, Amberghini, Puppy, with this blog post I’ll be saying my final goodbye to you. Thank you for great memories and your truly unconditional love.
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