I told my boyfriend that I almost didn’t date him because on our first date he said he didn’t like Friday Night Lights. 

He reacted appropriately, by saying he would try watching a few episodes of the first season.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Once upon a time, I had just enter my years of teenagedom and my dog Lilly was dying. Her full name was Tiger Lilly, and she was a beautiful whippet who ran faster than any dog I’ve ever seen, before or since, run. My family loved to bring up the time she had ran around an above ground pool so many times - in circles, over and over - that she had essentially dug a ditch with the dirt she kicked up on each go around. She was stubborn, would only do anything - ANYTHING - for food, and spent a large chunk of her time curling her long, sleek body into an impossibly tight circle inside a dog bed. 

Near the end of her life, she began to get skinnier and skinner and we were told she was no longer digesting her food properly. Her ribs began to stick out, and her face got more and more gaunt. One night, when I was 13, I lay in my bed upstairs and heard her yelp downstairs. Years of living with dogs had taught me that if a dog cries in the night, it is probably best to ignore - to indulge in it, or to go downstairs, only serves to rile them up more and make them more awake and jumpy. That night, I heard the yelp and felt compelled to go downstairs. But I didn’t. In the morning, I watched as my dad lifted her curled up body, now still, into a cardboard box. I didn’t watch him bury it.

My house was quiet, strange. We had always had dogs growing up. At one point, we had four dogs. Some of them passed away, a couple of them had to go to another home because my parent’s lives were too busy briefly to properly care for them and train them. But then, there was only one. Lilly. And now she was gone.

I remember distinctly feeling a stillness to the house that I had never experienced before. My grandfather had just moved in with us, too old and sick to care for himself, and that coupled with the lack of animal life made it seem like a blanket of depression had settled over the big white house we inhabited. It felt muffled and cold. Quiet and boring. 

It couldn’t have been more than a month or so before I started to push to get another dog. We had a big book that listed all sorts of breeds, and I would casually leave it out on the counter for my parents to see. My sister and I would flip through it, exclaiming over the different pictures and descriptions.

Eventually, we flipped through one day and lingered on a rare breed, not even recognized by the AKC: the Kooikerhondje. A dutch spaniel, a duck hunter, a beautiful silky dog. Something clicked for us and we knew this was the breed for our family. 

After getting a brief positive affirmation from both parents, I immediately launched into scouring the internet to find out more. At the time, I believe, there were only approximately 100 or so Kooikerhondjes in the United States and Canada. These days, I think there are more, but not by much. I found breeders in Texas and in the land of the Canucks, but no puppies anytime soon. Then - I found it - a group of puppies had just been born to a breeder in the Netherlands that would happily ship dogs to the US. I remember thinking that it would be a hard sell on my parents, but in the end it only took a few conversations and an offer of myself paying for half the fee via my savings for us to agree that one of those little puppies would be ours in about 6 weeks.

If I recall correctly, it was right about October 13th or so of my 8th grade year when the flight was scheduled to arrive with our new puppy. We had already determined a name - Anastasia, after the last Romanov princess, or Annie for short. My dad and I drove to Newark together that day and went to the building where they kept special packages for pick up. We walked in and could immediately hear a dog crying and the people behind the counter were excited and relieved that we had come to take her away. 

She was a little nugget of short white and red-tannish patches, and she stumbled around in the grass inbetween cars in the Newark parking lot, blinking in the light of the US for the first time. We drove home with her in my lap, curled up and sleeping, and it was instant love for me. 

I spent the next couple of nights sleeping with her on the kitchen floor (no dogs allowed upstairs!) and pouring over dog training books. As she got older, her fur grew to be luxurious and her eyes to be bright, clear, and focused. She was a happy dog, always appeared to be smiling - and our big wooded backyard full of rabbits and squirrels was perfect for her to run around in enormous circles, bounding after wildlife and rolling around in wet leaves. 

She was a smart dog who loved the outdoors and playing games with all of us. She used to run around our pool and try to “catch” the big rubber balls we would throw at her - she knew she couldn’t catch them but the movement of her jaw caused them to bounce off and (most of the time) directly back at my dad or myself - effectively playing catch half in and half out of the pool! 

She would do the same in the house, and loved to run and fetch things. I’ll never forget the time I brought her home a duck stuffed toy - after all she was bred for duck hunting - and it was destroyed in five minutes. She must have had a strong instinct!

Annie knew the second you thought that you were going to go on a walk - she would bound to the front door and pace in front of it, eyeing the leash draped over the stairs. She’d obediently sit and be attached to the leash, then happily bound around the streets of Fort Salonga, sniffing and sticking her nose into any and everything. She loved long walks that would sometimes get her to the beach, and she lived for the moments when we’d turn down into our long driveway and unattach the leash and she’d bound freely down the hundred or so feet.

Her fur was amazing to run your hands through, but tumbleweeds rolled around our floors for years. My mom tried everything - supplements, weekly grooming, different hair cuts - nothing worked. We were stuck with the tumbleweeds and the gobs of hair in the corner - disgusting, but our love for Annie triumphed anyway. 

She was cuddly and affectionate, would leap into your lap and lick your face all over. If I sat down next to her and said, “kisses!” she’d leap up and give me some, no hesitation whatsoever. She was well behaved, and endured many parties I threw in high school and the early years of college - loud music and young people and plenty of booze. She took it in stride, either reveling in the attention from everyone or quietly observing from a corner.

In the later years of her life, we got two new dogs, little Maltese-Yorkie mixes. We never socialized her with other dogs, so at first she was frightened - what were these little balls of fur that would attack her? I felt tremendous guilt - had we ruined her life by introducing these other critters? Would she be unhappy and scared forever?

With time, she got used to them and adopted the role of mother, corralling them and nipping them when they got too rowdy. They’d fight over treats and bones, but she was always the strongest, smartest and the favorite out of all of them. She was smarter and more beautiful and the golden child of our house - and I made sure she knew that. 

I’m not sure what else to say except that I loved her. She was my baby, and I felt like I raised her - I felt like she knew me and understood me. I know she was “just” a dog, but I can’t count the number of times I cried into her fur or fell asleep on the couch with her curled up next to me. She took long walks with my Dad and I, or my entire family. She was there for all the crap that happens between the ages of 14 and 23 - and I think all of us know that’s a lot of crap - and she took it in stride. She was beautiful and smart and so much fun - and I will miss her so much. 

She was diagnosed with lymphoma about two months ago, and her health deteriorated really rapidly. She stopped eating this weekend, and apparently the two little pups stopped eating as well. On Monday morning, Watson (one of the puppies) was shaking and shivering. My mom left the dogs at home and when she returned, Annie was asleep, forever. 

May she rest in peace, my little girl.