Cora: July 2006 - May 2013

It doesn't escape me the irony of an early thought: in writing the article for Focus on Life: Hope I wanted to write about Cora and the hope I had she'll be OK... then I didn't put that on the 'paper'... maybe inside I knew the only hope was to have a painless end...

We first had Brondi, our first German Shepard. She has been an amazing dog - truly incredible. When she left us way too soon we first thought there will be no more dogs. But William was young and a couple of years after we realized there is no point in depriving him from the unique love of humans' best friend just because we were still feeling pain. So we started to look for the next family addition - vowing first it will not be a German Shepard. The more we browsed the internet for dogs - the more it became clear that we are, indeed, one-breed people. A visit to a breeder close-by and this little cute puppy was the only one in the litter that followed us around. She had a small 'defect' at the corner of her left eye which the breeder (and later the vet) offered to remove it. We never allowed it - she was unique that way, and very cute looking even when she grew older - and a few weeks after she came to live with us, our beloved Cora.

Soon we discovered she thinks of William as her own brother (he was just 3 at the time) and their playfulness was truly contagious. As she grew - she started to guard him (and us, but he was always #1) with the atrocity only love gives one. She hated the postman with passion (I've never seen a dog hating the postman that badly) and let them all know, no matter how often they changed. But she loved us - and she was always ready to give us a kiss, to play, to join us traveling.

She has been sick for a while - fortunately not something to make her uncomfortable (or not for too long), just an illness that had no real cure, no guarantees to ever get better (an immune system issue), one that would make her have more ear infections than the child had. We knew it's just a matter of enjoying her love for us much as possible, we knew it's going to be a day when all this would end, we were just praying to be as far as possible - and that's all God had granted us with her: almost 7 years.

She entered our lives in September 2006 and she left this world yesterday, May 10th, 2013.

It is hard - the house is quieter now (Lucky, the chocolate lab is not vocal at all, she's quite surprised at the quiet too!). There is nobody telling the squirrels to get off. There is nobody to check the door or to argue about who is allowed to cross our yard or not.

Always ready to open gifts on Christmas day - but very politely waiting for everyone
to open theirs before she would get her bone and chew it. 

But there are and always will be the memories of Cora: our brave and beautiful and loving friend.

Watching royally over her kingdom from her favourite spot: the living room armchair:
she barely fit in it, but she would jump on every time she could!

The pain is still raw - we just hope (see, there is still hope) she's now running across the grass of heavens along Brondi and Ferdi and they share memories of our family as they all knew it at different times.

Loving us dearly every moment of her life: we hope she knew we loved her back!
RIP, Cora, you have been a wonderful part of our family!

May you rest in peace loving friend, we cherish every moment we have been granted together and we will remember you forever. You have touched our lives and we hope you know it!

P.S. To match our moods as soon as I got home from the vet yesterday the sky literary opened and rain poured hard for a long time. Tears from heaven?