Our Doggy Bailey

Bailey came into our lives in 2004.  We were taking care of our neices and nephew at the time and had just bought a house.  I thought it would be great for Jeremy to have a dog to take care of and play with.

 My family had always been cat people.  Mainly because our landlord wouldn't allow us to have a dog and we wanted pets, so we always had a cat.  We had just gotten our kitty, Emma, and loved her very much.  But I decided to try to find a dog.  I have always thought labs to be the most beautiful dog ever so of course that is what I wanted.  However, they can be expensive and the animal rescue shelter didn't have any.  We found another dog that we liked and decided to get that dog instead. 

 Then Jen Shepherd called to tell us about Bailey.  Her sister in law, Stacie, had gotten Bailey as a puppy for Christmas in 2000.  A year later she had a little girl and Bailey spend a lot of time out in the back yard.  Life with little ones is busy and so they felt Bailey needed more attention.  After a very hard decision they allowed us to take her home and adopt her.

Bailey is a great doggy.  She loves the kids and is always so great with them.  She is not much at chasing a ball. After you throw it and she gets it once or twice, she looks up at you like, "You seriously want me to keep doing this?"  Then she lays down in the grass and goes to sleep.

Bailey has two great joys in life.  One is greating people at the door and smelling them all over.  (Sorry people, but you smell amazing.  My dog can't help it.)  The other is going on a walk.  She gets so excited and just about pulls me out the door and down the street to the creek.  There she runs all over and has a blast.  The funniest thing is when she tried to dig out an animal she smells in the ground.  Hasn't caught one yet, but she won't give up.

Our doggy has some issues.  She has a lot of food allergies and it causes her to have the most horrific gas.  This makes for great conversation when she lets one under the table with all of our family or friends sitting around it.  One day our family was sitting around the table playin games.  Bailey had a silent but deadly bomb she dropped under the table.  One by one we started dying. Cassie, Chris' mom's doggy ran over to the window and stuck her nose out.  It was so funny!!

Before having kids I took Bailey out running when ever I could.  One day I decided to roller blade with her.  I love roller blading and am pretty good at it.  However, I don't stop well.  At all.  Well, Bailey has only one mode when on a leash. . . it is RUN.  And she does.  She pulled me at top speed all around the neighborhood.  Then we headed full speed into a cul-da-sac.  I was going so fast I couldn't turn fast enough to stay on the sidewalk.  I went up a drive way and slammed into a garage door. . . hard.  I turned to see two guys watching me and laughing.  I gathered what remained of my dignity and skated away as fast as I could.  Needless to say, I no longer skated with Bailey.

The girls have always had Bailey with them as they grew.  She is a big part of her life.  Bailey is sick right now.  Really sick.  Her kidney's have shut down and only 10% of them are still working.  She doesn't want to eat her food and she is still throwing up even though we are giving her meds for that.  The only thing that she will touch is her wet food.  Our doggy may have 6 months to 2 years to live. 

We are going to enjoy the time that we have with her while she is able to play and be herself.  The other day we went on a walk: the girls, Bailey and I.  Bailey was beside herself with giddyness and ran all over.  We took the time to get some special pictures with Bailey.   The day was perfect, the lighting wonderful and we got some great pictures.  I love quiet evenings with my kids.