RIP Pepper 1994-2009 (approx)

Today we lost our sweet Pepper girl. It is a very sad day.

We adopted her back in 1999- one of two. Pepper was approximately 6 years old and Petey was approximately 3 years old when they found us. We had been talking to a neighbor about adopting a dog and she asked whether we'd take two. We had a half acre and plenty of room, so we went to pick them up. Petey was barking and Pepper was overwhelmed and cowering in amongst all the other dogs. Several hundred dollars later we took them home. Petey promptly cocked his leg on our brand new leather sofa, marking his new home- he was here to stay.

Pepper was always the quiet one, but she was also our guard dog. She loved to watch the passersby from the windows, and bark at them when they dared to come near. She was the dominant one and loved always to be in front when we walked her, and boy did we walk miles together. Every day. Both of them also loved the long hikes we took them on- we walked so far, they slept the whole way home. We lived around a lake in Georgia and there was a 10 acre piece of Greenspace- they loved to run through it and once they got the idea in their head there was no stopping them. Twice they escaped from their back yard- once we found them in the greenspace, once coming back from the lake. Both times they were on their way home when I found them- huge smiles on their faces. We played hours and hours of ball with them, they chased more squirrels than we could count and Pepper even caught one once- and did not know what to do with it when she did!

Petey was a hound-huskey mix and we loved him dearly too. He died of cancer in January 2007, just before we moved to California. I drove Pepper across the states the following month- 2580 miles because I did not want to put her on a plane. The two of them were holy terrors together- but once Pepper was on her own, she enjoyed being the only dog. We spoiled her rotten and joked that our home here in California was her retirement home. She loved the climate here and spent hours in the garden- we had to force her to come in at night. She had slowed down a lot recently, and as an old dog she was going blind, and deaf and had arthritis, but as the vet said 'everyone gets old'. She still plodded on. Today it was just too much.

It's weird how the universe throws these things at us. I only blogged about her on Sunday, as I had just found pictures of when we first adopted her- maybe I was meant to find them then.

We have some great memories of our Pepper girl. But, I am going to miss her so much.