April 2012

April started out very bad but ended better. Toward the beginning of the month, Duke had stopped eating. When we took him in to the vet, she said it looks like he most likely has kidney failure and there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it. She gave us a special diet to feed him, as well as some medication and fluids to inject in him to keep him hydrated. The fluids seemed to make him feel better, but he still wouldn't eat much and was getting weaker. A couple days later, I had to make the decision that it was time to put him down. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but it was his time. We spent the weekend at a couple different beaches with him to say goodbye since the beach was Duke's favorite place. Adam was sent home from work Monday morning so he could take him because it was too hard for me. We still miss Duke very much, but the first 2 weeks without him were difficult. I kept looking out for him whenever I walked, thinking I needed to walk him all throughout the day, and thinking we needed to get home after being out for a few hours because Duke was home alone. I never realized until then how much our lives revolved around Duke. Here are some pictures we took of him during his last week with us.

 Later that day, a friend of mine invited us to go to the lighthouse with her and her family to help cheer us up. It is only a half mile from our place, but we had never gone before then. It was kind of cool to walk around inside and see the old stuff they had there. There was also a really pretty view of the bay from the upstairs window.

The following weekend, Adam and I finally got around to going to Point Lobos State Park, somewhere I had been wanting to visit for like a year. It was really pretty there, and it was fun to see the seals and otters in the water.

A couple weeks after losing Duke, Adam decided it was time for us to get another dog. Since Duke was so awesome, he really wanted another pug. So, he found one on Craigslist, and we were fortunate to get her before anybody else did. On the way to pick her up, we stopped really quickly to see the sea of elephant seals resting on the shore. When we got there, Adam fell in love immediately, and she seemed to really like him right away. We named her Princess Liliuokalani, or Lily for short. She is super cute and fun and has a ton of energy. We still need to work on a couple bad habits, but overall we feel really blessed to have her.