Memories of Brea

Brea, our black lab, died yesterday. She would have been 18 on May 24 - that's 126 in dog years. I know she had a long, full and happy life but I am still mourning her passing. Rainbow and Taz are having a tough time too as this is their first real experience with death.

Scouter and I got Brea soon after we got engaged. Scouter had always wanted a lab, and his roommate worked with a lady who's dog had just had a litter. The mom was a beautiful chocolate lab, the dad was black, and all the puppies were black. When we went to pick her out, we were greeted by nine rollie-pollie eight-week old puppies. And she actually picked us. I stepped into the puppy pen, and she charged me. She rode home in my lap, and even when she grew to her top weight of ~84 pounds, she still loved to climb into my lap for some love.

The first few nights in Scouter's apartment, she missed her mommy and her brothers and sisters. My tender-hearted Scouter didn't want her to sleep in the bed but he couldn't stand to hear her cries, so he slept on the floor with her. She soon got used to her new home and started getting into mischief.

Brea loved to run and chase anything - ball, stick, frisbee, whatever. One day when Brea was a pup, we were outside playing on the lawn in front of the apartment. Brea started running away and Scouter yelled at her to come back. The little girl in the apartment across from us looked at us strangely, then walked over to ask what he wanted. Turns out her name was Brea too! Once she realized we were talking to the dog, she was quite relieved. The two of them became friends and playmates.

One day, Scouter came home for lunch to find a stubby yellow lab hanging half in and half out of our kitchen window. Brea was in heat for the first time and he had literally broken the window to get in. Scouter rescued her from her first unwanted suitor.

Thanks to Scouter's roommate, Rob, we not only found Brea but she developed a big popcorn habit. He tossed popcorn to her all the time. Until the day she died, she got excited whenever she smelled popcorn.

The night before Scouter and I got married, Brea ate all of his shoes except the rentals that went with his tux. Our first imperative on our honeymoon was to buy Scouter a pair of tennis shoes to replace the ones Brea used as chew toys.

We moved into our first house when Brea was 14 months old. By then, she had destroyed the apartment, literally eating through some of the dry wall. We were very excited to have a big fenced back yard for her.

Turns out our little social pup wasn't fond of being in the big backyard alone. She learned to scale the fence - it was a six foot high wooden privacy fence - and would roam the neighborhood. We didn't know about her activities until I happened to come home early from work one day. I panicked when I couldn't find her and started running through the neighborhood, calling her name. A lady called back to me and pointed to Brea. Relieved, I confirmed that was my dog at which point she told me Brea came over to play with her dog every afternoon. Apparently, she made her rounds. Many times after that, I found her lounging in the front yard, surveying the neighborhood.

Brea was the first neighbor to meet Ed and Meda when they moved across the street. She ran through their house as a one-dog welcoming committee as they were unloading boxes. She's been Ed's girlfriend ever since. She also made friends with the Rottweiler next door, whose parents often came over to see if Brea could come outside to play with Kia.

Not only could she climb the fence, but she could scale almost anything that got in her way. One day, our friend Billy was throwing the frisbee to her in our backyard. He accidentally threw it on top of the shed. No problem. Brea got a running start, dug her claws into the wood shed and pulled herself up on the roof where she then jumped over to the metal shed, grabbed her frisbee, hopped down and was ready for the next throw.

Scouter used go to work much earlier than I did, so I was still in bed when he left. Every morning, I would hear the front door shut, then I'd hear Brea bounding up the stairs to leap on the bed to snuggle with me. Scouter joked about the black dog hair he'd find on his side of the bed every night.

One of her favorite things to do was to go to my parent's house at the river. The first time we went, she was scared of the water until she accidentally fell off the pier and realized she could swim. Then we couldn't keep her out of it! She would sneak away from my parents house and come back soaking wet. She chased whatever we threw into the river, returning to the bank to shower us with sand and salt water before hopping around anxious to go again. She figured out that swimming from shore took too long; if she ran down the pier and dove into the water, she could retrieve faster. We have some great pictures of her launching herself off of the pier. As she got older, she still loved the water but she started occasionally taking breaks, lying in a shady spot on the sand.

The first time we went to visit Jodi and Bruce in Canada, Brea came with us to meet their new yellow lab puppy, Samantha. Brea and Sam had the best time together! Our photos are all about Brea and Sam's big adventures... maybe just a few of Jodi, Bruce, Scouter and I and then only if a dog was doing something cute near us. They were definitely our first babies.

Brea was seven years old when we moved. She didn't understand that we were coming back when we left her. Before we fenced the yard, we left her in the house where she tried to claw her way out when we weren't around. We still have carpet damage, covered up of course. She found one particular chair from the old house to be comforting and claimed it for her own. We intentionally fenced our new yard with slats that she could see through. She learned to love her new house and especially her new yard, where she could see all the activity on the block.

Brea was 11 when Taz was born. She wasn't quite sure what to make of him when we brought him home from the hospital, but she was instinctively protective. She became very agitated whenever he cried. If I didn't respond right away, she paced between me and the baby, stopping to nudge my hand and propel me towards him. She was always with us, and if we weren't together, she posted a spot in between us.

Scouter woke me in the middle of the night when Brea was 12, Taz was one and I was six months pregnant with Rainbow, telling me that Brea was sick. She had asked to go outside then started digging a hole for herself in the far corner of our yard. Her stomach was hard and big like a basketball and she couldn't lay down. I called the emergency vet and Scouter took her at 3:00 in the morning. They diagnosed her with a flipped stomach and performed emergency surgery right away. If the emergency vet hadn't been available, we would have lost her then. The vet called us the next morning to report that the surgery went well and that Brea hopped up on the table as soon as it was over. She had never seen a dog do that before, particularly one so old. Brea had to stay at the doggie hospital for a few days, so every night, Scouter, Taz and I went to visit. She looked so sad with her shaved stomach and legs, needles and tubes everywhere.

By the time Rainbow was born, Brea was an old hand with babies. She stayed very busy guarding the two of them all the while keeping track of my activities. As they grew, she became a big play toy to them and she was unbelievably tolerant and patient with their toddler curiosity.

The last year has been tough for my old girl. She lost control of her bowel movements and was relegated to live in the garage. Her hip started giving out and she walked with a tilt. The vet assured us that she was never in any pain, thank goodness. Nothing made her happier than flopping on the ground near the kids when they were playing. She loved to be in the middle, and a pat on the head was fabulous.

I know we are blessed to have had her for so long and that she is happily chasing a frisbee in doggie heaven right now.