This morning, we don't mourn like those who have no hope.

My dear old dog Teddi Bear Ying Molly Hegenderfer died yesterday. She had to be put to sleep after a few hard months of failing health. She'd been losing weight, losing energy, she even lost the ability to walk eventually.

I don't know, I guess we all knew it was coming. I never expected it to happen yesterday, though. I came home from school to the news she was gone. I remember that morning, I was getting ready for school, and walked passed her, and she started wagging her tail. I thought it was really strange, because Teddi stopped wagging her tail a long time ago. Now it almost seems like she was saying goodbye...

We got Teddi when I was seven years old. My mom, sister and I stopped at a pet store at the mall in Ohio with no plans for a new pet, just to look around. Another dog, Sam, had just died a month or two previously, not that I was too upset. We never got along...I always felt like she had it in for me...

My mom noticed one puppy in particular, a two month old shar-pei, was totally focused on me, watching my every move, so we decided to play with her for a bit, and then when all three of us fell in love, we took her home for a weekend trial.

My dad was not so enthusiastic.

Nor was mom after a night of wailing, as the then unnamed dog cried and pooed in the cardboard box we kept her in at first. However, it took no time at all for all four of us to be fairly attached to the puppy, so of course we wound up keeping her.

And thus attempts to name her began. Each and every one of my suggestions was thrown out the window immediately, but I recall my sister being rather adamant that we name her Molly for some reason. I didn't particularly care at the time. I just wanted to know what her name was so I would know what to call her.

My mom threw out the suggestion Teddy Bear, since Teddi bore a resemblance to one, and when it was pointed out that our dog was a female, we changed it to Teddi Bear. Ying, her middle name, came later because when we first got her, she loved to follow me around, and be my shadow. My mom thought up this one, too, knowing that Ying is the chinese word for shadow, only appropriate for a Chinese dog. Molly wound up getting slung at the end of this because my sister thought it a better middle name than Ying.

Yes, we give our dogs middle names. :p

And so, for the next fourteen years, Teddi was there wherever we went, through moving here and there. She and I had all sorts of little adventures together. When we lived up in the mountains and had sixty acres of land and some horses, the two of would run all over the place exploring.

And I remember dressing her up with my sister(mostly her idea) and the way she'd go crazy every time she thought she was about to get a banana, and when we smuggled her into a hotel wrapped in blankets, and when she was so fixated on my dad that she walked into a wall...

She had a ton of nicknames. Puff and Twinkie were two I used quite often...Puff because of the way she'd be breathing when we came from a long walk together, Twinkie because, er, she looked like a twinkie from behind, when she's laying down. I swear...

We didn't spend much as time together over the last couple years, but I'm still going to miss her! It's so weird, we only have one dog now. I keep thinking when I feed Isabella or let her outside, I need to take care of Teddi, too. I'm going to miss the little mutt, er purebred.

Goodbye, Twinkie!