>>2378185She was a rescue. She was all skin and bones from living on the street and maybe six months old when we adopted her, and she had a nasty looking scar on her hindquarters. It took some time for her to stop being afraid and feel comfortable at home. But after a few months, she really warmed to us and became happy and affectionate.
But she was always afraid of new people and other dogs. Maybe six-ish months after we adopted her, we had an incident. Someone else had their dog off leash to throw a ball around just outside our apartment complex. When we came into view, the dog came running over to us. I'm sure the dog was friendly, but she panicked and tried really hard to flee. In the process, she tore the dog-equivalent of her ACL in both back knees. It took six months and two rounds of surgery to get her back to normal. (Pet insurance is important, friends)
She would get me up at sunrise every day for our walk. Now I sleep in and am worse for it. She loved the water. We lived in several places, but we always found a creek or a river or a pond to go splash around in. I took her to a lake and briefly taught her to swim, even. Tried to get her in a kayak, but she kept jumping out. She kept trying to dig up gopher holes and chase squirrels. Once she was faster than me and just straight up killed a bird that was nesting in a bush.
Back in January, she developed a bump on her forehead. It turned out to be cancer that had started in her sinuses. Surgery wasn't an option and radiation/chemo seemed cruel. So we took her on a few last adventures and waited as long as we could. She was only five years old.
She was born in Texas, but she loved snow. We took her all over the country. Ave atque vale, Scarlet.
I've attempted four times to upload a simple video of her sprinting around the river, but 4chan is gay, so you get another still of us looking at the Truckee river. This used to be our normal morning walk. God damn, do I miss Nevada.
