Already?

It hasn't even been a year since I went through this the last time. I was kind of counting on it being longer in between times. Yet here I sit, sad as can be, and grieving another loss.

The husband and I had only been married for about 6 months when I HAD to have something to nurture. We went to the pet store. We found the most adorable little Yorkie pup. She was WAY too expensive. So we kept looking. And then we found, in the newspaper, a puppy we could afford. We went and looked at them. She was ADORABLE and I had to have her. And the husband has never really been good at denying me anything I MUST have. So we brought her home that very evening. And she was the cutest little thing EVER.

As I lay in bed crying last night, I was remembering back. And the thought came to me- why the HECK did we get a dog at that time!!? I am not a person that uses logic to think things through. I am 100% emotion. And that is how I made that decision. We lived in an apartment. We were not allowed to have pets. We bought her, I think, without even asking my parents if it was OK for us to keep her at their house (which is exactly where she ended up). I obviously did NOT think this through first. But I wouldn't have changed that decision for anything. Not even knowing that, eventually, yesterday would happen and we'd have to say good-bye.

We had a hard time picking out a name for our little girl. We thought on it for quite a while. Then, brother5 who had recently returned from Russia thought of Malishka. In Russian it means "little one". And I knew it was perfect, because not only did it fit, but also the husband had served his mission in Russia. And so, with Mali, started the tradition of naming our dogs Russian names or words.

Some things about Mali:

• We got her for me, but she chose the husband as her person. 
• She gave birth to 2 litters- litter #1 had 8 pups: all girls, and litter #2 had 7 pups: 5 boys & 2 girls. 
• And from these 2 litters came our other 3 dogs, one of which passed away last summer. 
• From the time we brought the girl home Mali has slept on, beside, or under her bed. And I KNOW she saved the girl's life one night a couple years ago. 
• Whenever we would come home, and the kids were asleep, we would put the dogs outside before bringing the kids in from the car. As soon as we let the dogs back in, Mali would run straight to their rooms and check on them before she would greet us. 
• Probably about the first of the year we noticed that she was deaf and could not hear us unless we yelled LOUD.
• She was a very good mommy and, to the day she died, made sure her babies were clean. (it drove me nuts!)
• She would growl/bark at you to let you know she was there waiting for you to pay attention to her.
• She was the most ornery of all the dogs and didn't tolerate the boy very well when he was a toddler chasing her around.

A couple weeks ago we noticed that the lump by her tail (which we thought was just a fatty deposit or something) had gotten bigger. Unlike Shastya,who we had time to prepare for, Mali's was sudden. And we had to decide what to do- FAST. The lump got bigger, the skin cracked and bled. I will not go into details or the whole story, but the jist is- she was losing a lot of blood. And she was hurting.

I will miss my Mali girl. She was my baby before I had babies. She was such a wonderful dog. She fulfilled the measure of her purpose.

Malishka

April 9, 1999- May 14, 2011