Emmy Orzel, 2002-2015

We lost the Queen of Niskayuna tonight. Emmy had been having some health issues for a while, and while we were in Florida this past weekend she wasn't eating for the pet-sitter. We tried yet another new version of the new diet food today, with only limited success. And this afternoon, she fell going up the stairs, then again on the deck.

Our regular vet was near closing time, so they recommended going to a different veterinary hospital in the area, where they could do x-rays and ultrasounds as needed. And those revealed a large mass in her abdomen, from tumors in her liver and gall bladder. We might've been able to eke out another few weeks, but the only reason would've been to maybe have a slightly happier goodbye, and she was just too miserable to put her through that.

I spent a good while at the vet's sobbing, because she was a great dog, and the best Emmy ever. And now I'm looking back at some very old pictures and remembering a dozen years with Her Majesty. This snowy photo from 2003 has always been one of my favorites:

Emmy in December 2003, only a few months after we got her.

(Her normal collar was red, but when we first got her, she had a habit of chewing through them, and thus there was a brief stretch when she wore a blue collar, because the pet store didn't have any red ones that day...)

Because I'm usually the one behind the camera, I don't have all that many photos of me and Emmy together. This is one of the best, from March of 2008:

Emmy and her Big Human, chilling out.

I had vaguely meant to do a picture for the photo-a-day project using the camera remote to get the two of us together; now I'm kicking myself for not getting to it soon enough.

Anyway, she was a great dog, and lived to a ripe old age by canine standards. We had twelve fun and eventful years with her, which is at once more than you can expect, and not nearly enough.

And I'm pretty much a wreck right now, so don't expect much from me for a while.