Sally

This post is dedicated to my dog sally. she was my first dog. we got her when i was about three and i was utterly afraid of her; when my dad came home she would go crazy and run around the house with excitement and i would stand on the top of our couch to hide. one night i began feeding ehr cheerios and that was the night that i got over my fear of dogs. she was the cutest thing in the world. she loved swimming; every once in awhile when visitors came or another excuse for the front door to open, she would bolt out and jump into our neightbors' pool. they'd call and ask if we were missing sally and we'd run over to get her. she was the dog who would jump up on everyone and go up and lick you like twenty times. she was so lively. She ate rocks too and then threw them up the next morning; those were her gifts of gratitiude to us, besides her tail wagging practically every moment one of us was around and her kisses and when she would jump on our beds in the morning, afternoon or night. when we blew bubbles when we were young, she'd think we were throwing balls for her to fetch, so she tried to catch in he mouth. she also played in the snow with us and jumped on our backs with all our snow gear on. we'd throw snow balls at her and she'd catch them. we just found out that sally has cancer that started in her spleen, then moved to her liver and now lungs. we have to decide when to put her down tonight. we have another dog, oscar, but we got him after sally, so obviously we would feel just as bad if he died but sally was our first. she was our 6th family member. when i wake up i know i'm gonna want to see her greet me at the stairs and i know i'm gonna want to hear her tail beating against the floor. i know i'm going to cry, i know im going to have to tell her story fifty more times. but, what will we do with our two dog beds and our two leashes and our two dog bowls and our two hearts? will we get a new dog? will i feel the same way about her/him as i did for sally?
But the worst thing is she's still sitting in our family room huffing and puffing.