Pepper’s Story

My beautiful baby girl.  I never had a chance to say a proper goodbye to you.  I never thought you would begin your journey to the Bridge that day.  Why did you hide the pain you must have felt long before the symptoms appeared?  Two weeks ago you were still doing the “Chinese Crested Twirl” as we called it, as you would attempt to catch your tail.  You still wanted to play with your ball and everything seemed normal, until it wasn’t.  The first clue you gave us was that you no longer wanted to eat.  So unusual for you as you always wanted food.  We wasted no time making an appointment to see your vet.  Your regular wonderful vet was on vacation so we had to see another doctor at the clinic.  He took a blood test and just said you were anemic and put you on medication.  This didn’t sound right so I made an appointment the next day at a different hospital to get a second opinion.  She agreed with the diagnosis of anemia but said you were slowly bleeding internally.  Your regular vet returned the following day and called me early in the morning to check on you.  I told him everything that happened and he said to bring you right in to be examined.  He determined you were bleeding from your spleen and it would have to be removed immediately.  I held your head in my hands and kissed your nose as I promised you I would be back later to take you home.  Baby, I’m in so much pain that I couldn’t keep that promise to you.  I received a phone call from the vet during the surgery saying that he found another problem that was hidden in the x-ray and ultrasound.  Your liver had a large tumor inside that wouldn’t be able to be removed.  I had to make the heartbreaking decision to let you rest in peace without waking you up again.  In so many ways I feel like I let you down by not bringing you home.  Instead, I brought your ashes home.  I do take comfort in knowing that you aren’t in pain any longer, but losing you hurts so much.

I miss you sleeping on the pillow next to me and resting your head on my pillow (and sometimes on my head).  I haven’t washed that pillow or your blanket, and I can still smell your scent during the night making me believe that you’re still there.  Actually, you are still here with me in every way that counts.  You are permanently in my heart and part of my soul that will always be with me.  Dad and I love and miss you so much, sweetie.

(Pepper’s original story continues below)

A few weeks before we found Autumn and Shelby, I had made some calls to some Chinese Crested breeders to see if they had any puppies available.  I was looking for another hairless like DeeDee and April.  I talked to a local breeder who said she didn’t have any available at the time but would call me if she did have a litter in the future.

A couple months after we brought Autumn and Shelby home I received a call asking me if I would be interested in a 6-month old hairless that she was trying to find a home for. “Patty” grew too large to be show quality and she wanted to find her a good home. We went to meet her and agreed to make her part of our family.  Her full name was “Peppermint Patty” and we chose to just call her Pepper.

Pepper also fit into our family perfectly.  She was also very helpful in convincing Shelby that the world wasn’t such a scary place after all.  Shelby and Pepper were only 3 months apart in age and they became best friends almost immediately.

Pepper was a very playful pup and still is almost 7 years later.  Her ball is her favorite toy and she lets us know when she’s ready to play and won’t take NO for an answer.  At night her favorite place to sleep is on top of one of our heads.

Pepper has always been a dog with a lot of love to give and she gives it freely to everyone, especially if there is a ball involved.

More pictures of Pepper are available on the Picture Pages listed below.

The links to the Picture Pages below will take you to pages on my old website. It may ask you if you want to download the music from the original site. You may cancel this request and go directly to the Picture Page. Feel free to browse all these original pages but then please use the back button or close the tab on your browser to return to the new website.  Thank You!

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