Tag: Zoey

A Tribute to ZoΓ«

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ΛšΚšβ™‘ΙžΛš π•Ύπ–Šπ–Š π–žπ–”π–š 𝖔𝖓 π–™π–π–Š π–”π–™π–π–Šπ–— π–˜π–Žπ–‰π–Š 𝖔𝖋 π–™π–π–Š π–—π–†π–Žπ–“π–‡π–”π–œ π–‡π–—π–Žπ–‰π–Œπ–Š, π–•π–šπ–•π–•π–ž π–Œπ–Žπ–—π–‘. 09.25.09 – 09.26.22 ΛšΚšβ™‘ΙžΛš

β™‘ Photo taken Summer 2021

I am crying as I write this. My beautiful little pug girl crossed the rainbow bridge last Monday and I’m finding it hard to put into words how I’m feeling. She was not just a dog. She was a friend and a member of the family. My parents grew to like her so much that they kept her after I moved across the country.

Sadly, I didn’t spend that much time living with my dog under the same roof. I went off to university the year after we got her and I lived on campus for the next four years. I would occasionally visit my parents on weekends. Fast forward to the year 2014 when I moved out of the house and moved across the country to a new province. Since then, I saw my dog very little – a couple times a year at most. Every time that I visited her, she had aged even more with grey hairs on her chin. But she was exactly the same, sweet and loving as I always knew.

Then I blinked, and it was her 13th birthday last month. By then her health had greatly deteriorated and I was lucky to spend one final summer with her last year, even though it was only a few days. By Spring 2022, she became completely deaf and was diagnosed with diabetes. Since April of that year, her diabetes had not been well managed since she was severely hyperglycemic and insulin resistant. She seemed old, but it was probably diabetes and not old age that made her decline faster than we had thought. It was just two weeks ago when she was not only deaf, but she was also blind, disoriented, and anxious. My last request to my parents was that they let her live until her 13th birthday, which they honored on September 25, 2022. On September 26th, 2022, she crossed the rainbow bridge. 🌈

It’s a Beautiful Life

ZoΓ« (spelled Zoey according to my dad) had a great life living with my parents and she often spent weekends with my dad on his sailboat. But I knew something was very wrong when she slipped off the dock and fell head-first into the water two days before her 13th birthday. My dad rescued her in time, but she was disoriented and scared. Prior to the incident, my parents tried a new trial medication to preserve her vision, but it was ineffective. When they told me she was having a hard time due to her old age, and that her time was coming to an end, I accepted it because I knew she had lived such a good and fulfilling life. But when the vet put her down last Monday, it was so difficult for me.

Last week, I was going through an intense period of grief and sadness after the sudden loss of my dog. While it is normal to feel this way and many people will identify with what I went through, I am still feeling very sad. However, the only thing that I can do is take things day by day. These are lyrics from a Korean song called Beautiful Day by Crush. It was playing on Spotify during my morning walk, which reminded me of ZoΓ«.

Her Memory Lives On 🐾

My parents want to plant a tree in their yard and I want to put a memorial rock by the red oak tree where ZoΓ«’s spot will be. The painted rock that I have would be great for that. I’ve had this rock for a while now. I got it from one of my friends in the U.S. before the pandemic happened. The plan was for me to hide in Canada, but I couldn’t do it. The game “Hide or Keep” is a lot like Geocaching because it incorporates the thrill of hunting for hidden rocks in various outdoor areas.

I intended to hide this painted rock somewhere on campus, but before I could, the pandemic happened. Also, there was major construction going on, so I was unable to find the time. That being said, I have kept the rock with me all this time, but it’s time for me to pass it on. I think I will place the rock next to the red oak tree in my parents’ front yard. This will become ZoΓ«’s spot.

β™‘ Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-tree-268533/

β€œIf having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” β€”James Herriot

P.S. This blog post was inspired by Jenny from Jenny in Neverland. To read her beautiful tribute to her dog, Rory, you can check out her heartwarming post here.

Thanks for stopping by! ❀

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