I can’t tell you how very hard it is for me to type up this post, but I knew it was going to come and it is just something I must do to help with my grieving process.

If you have followed along with me on my other blog, then you may have seen a few posts or photos or mentions of my beloved miniature red-haired dachshund named Mocca.  (Pronounced like the word spelled mocha)  You may have also seen along the side of this blog a photo of her and dedication of her life.  I would like to say thank you for those of you that have asked about her and sent thoughts of sympathy my way.  It is appreciated so so much!  I thought of her as a very special family member and was with her until the very end.  She was a fantastic companion and ALWAYS there for me and by my side day in and day out.  Every single one of my family members just LOVED her so much.  It has been hard on me, but I know for a fact that she has impacted the lives of everyone around her…she was loved that much.  This post is for all of us.

It was very hard to go through her photos to pick out just the right ones that I wanted to do these various things with, but I’m very glad I did.  I will begin with this photo that I took while she was looking up at me in the very spot I am typing up this post.  I grabbed my phone and took it.  I took the photo to my local Walgreens and had them make an 8×10 canvas printing and it is hanging on the wall right above my computer, so I can always see her.  It’s a very awesome canvas printing and the photo wraps around the edges.

Newborn Mocca: (I received this photo after she was born)

Part of the reason for my last absence from blogging was the caretaking of her.  She had developed some problems as most older dogs do, but she had arthritis, pancreatitis and lastly, she was diagnosed with a rare disease called Mega-esophagus or “floppy esophagus”.  What that means is that her throat didn’t allow her to swallow, and she would choke or “regurgitate” anything that was caught in there.  I had to specially make her food in meatball form and make enough to feed her small meals 4 times a day.  They needed to be spread out so that there was less of a chance of anything being caught.  Dogs that develop this disease can regurgitate and then accidentally ingest some of it causing them to die from aspiration pneumonia.  Not only this, when she did eat, she had to be in an upright position so that the food went down her throat by force of gravity.  And to make sure her meatballs got down to her stomach, I had to keep her sitting upright for at least 15-20 minutes after each feeding or any time I gave her something.  After Christmas time, she had gotten worse and was slowly deteriorating to the point she couldn’t take water without choking.  I was in a special group on Facebook that had the support of others going through the same thing with their pets and some helpful advice was given many times with her.  I started giving her “Knox blocks” to help with hydration.  She was older and with her other problems, she was still dehydrated, and I think she gave up because she refused to eat at the end.  Of course, I wanted to keep going and hubby knew this…so he made me take her in where the vet had to spell out to me how sick she was.  She was 12 and half years old on Groundhog’s Day of February this year when we had to let her go.  I’m pretty sure I yelled NO! at the office.   You may remember photos from her 12th birthday in her special chair:

I was hoping to be able to celebrate her 13th birthday with her which would’ve been today.  Unfortunately, we did not make it, so I thought this would be a good day to remember her.  Rest in peace my little beenie weenie…. I will see you some day at the rainbow bridge.

Something else that was very important for me to get done was her Shadow Box Memorial.  Hubby and I picked out one of our favorite photos of her.  She really enjoyed being out in the sunshine and grass.  She was very healthy in that photo.  The footprints came from the vet and I had heard that sometimes they fall apart, so I wanted her footprints to stand out a bit, so I took some glitter paint to go over them and then covered the entire piece of clay with some sealer.  I put it back into the plastic case I was given and then glued them onto the shadow box background.

On the other side of the paw print case that the vet gave me was this Rainbow Bridge Poem.  So I matted it with black card stock and attached it to the box.  (I apologize for the glare on the glass…hard to capture it.)  I still cannot read the entire thing without tears.

For the lettering of her name, I took some wood veneer letters and painted them along with the pink heart in the center of the ‘O’ and glued them on the back of the shadow box.

The other items are sentimental from her like the collar.  I cut the end of her collar because it was so curled up and part of it was all cracked from use.  The heart is a piece of fabric from her favorite “bone blanket” she got for Christmas one year.  I cut out a heart shape and then stitched around the edge with some black thread.  The tiny jar above her footprints is her red Doxie hair.  I had some from her comb in her little “beauty box” as we called it.

This month was also our local County Fair, and I decided that I was going to enter a simple scrapbook layout that I would be able to put in her scrapbook that I’m working on.  I ended up getting third place prize with it:

The photos were taken on Mother’s Day of last year.  She was snuggling with me on our front porch and fell asleep, so my hubby took photos of the process.   This is a 2-page 12×12 layout.

I remember now that this was about the time, I started growing my hair out…so it’s really gotten long since then! LOL!  I had some “cloud” pattern paper which I thought was perfect for this.  I added a sentiment sticker backed with black card stock along with stamping the birds and die cutting the swirl underneath the sentiment.

I had taken the other piece of “cloud” pattern paper to place on the opposite page, but I die cut the paw prints (From My Favorite Things) so that the black would show through.  The journaling says:

Mother’s Day 2017

It was a beautiful day to be outside and Mocca was enjoying the weather with me as we relaxed on the porch.  She finally fell asleep in my arms.  really miss snuggling with you sweetie.

The paw prints underneath the journaling were stamped in white ink from the MFT Critter Condolences stamp set.

She had even shared time with me by scratching up a spot on the carpet in weird places on the floor in my craft room 🙂 What a precious crafty friend!

Thank you for sharing this remembrance with me.  If any of you have ever lost a special friend like this, I know you understand.  I wish you all LOVE & PEACE

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2 Crafty Critters Crazies – challenge 16 Anything Goes with a critter.