I think she stole a piece of my heart...

Ira went home yesterday.

I knew I'd be sad to see her go, but I didn't think I'd be as sad as I was. I got up early to scrub her crate, get her dog food all packed up, let her out to pee, etc. And by then, I was feeling sick to my stomach and like I needed a good cry. So I laid down for a few minutes before I needed to leave to bring her home.

I took her outside to get into the car and she resisted. She never dogs that. She always meets everything with a "Oh HAI! I'm not scared!" attitude, but yesterday, she didn't want to get into my car. The tears started that moment. And they went on and on the whole 45 minute drive there. Ira would sit in her crate, looking at me, thump her tail, and lay down. She kept checking on me.

We got there, and I cried some more. Told her momma how good she'd been, and then she went to take her out of her crate, and Ira wouldn't come out...This is the dog who's usually barreling out of her crate to come play bitey on your limbs. She had to be physically taken out of the crate, and then her momma sat her on the ground and was speaking to her, and she kept coming back over to me. Even though I wasn't saying anything to her. And when she took her in and put her in a bigger crate she cried and screamed until I was gone and couldn't hear if she still was.

I sobbed the entire way home.

I'm still sad thinking about it. I don't know what it is about that Satan spawn, who most of the time irritated me, that makes me miss her so much, but man oh man, I sure do miss her.