Dear Puc,
I am not a big fan of writing about personal items, for you I make an exception. You changed my world. I deeply miss you already.
Since 2014 you had been our companion. Our first dog, our sweetest dog. Named after “Pug” the magician from Raymond E. Feist, you were our pride. You came to our house almost 11 years ago to the date (23rd of november 2014). We were so proud to bring you back home. We redecorated the house for you with rugs all over the bottom floor. When we came home, or downstairs you were there waiting for us, impatiently and happy to see us, always without any opinions, just happy and in for a cuddle!
Immediately from the start you took our hearts and were part of the family. You played with our son Bram, took his socks from him, and had great joy doing so. Obviously Bram found something of that and came after you to get back his socks. You just ran and had fun with him.
With Denise you made long walks when she was at home before and after her pregnancy, you were with her and sat next to her when she needed a rest. You both made many miles! You were a real help to her and always there for her. She trained you, you were so eager to learn always, and to work for your two biggest gifts: a cookie, and the most important one, hugs!
With Luca you had a very sweet moment, when he came back from a school camp you ran to him (we could not hold you), and jumped on him placing your legs around his neck and gave him a big hug. You missed him for sure! It was a nice moment to see and we will always remember it (we have the pictures).
When our youngest child, Julia, was born, you welcomed her with a lick on her feet, and sat next to her, protecting her as it was your own child. She could do anything with you, from horse riding to just lay with you on the couch, you found it all OK. She still mentions that she was your biggest friend.
You were naughty, energetic, very sweet, attentative, and stole the hearts of everyone you have ever met. You had an ever lasting grin on your face showing that you were relaxed, and happy. You had that for almost your entire life! You did not let go of people easily, you had to hug them and they needed to pet you. With those things, you really changed a lot of lifes!
Since you were part of our family, you were never away from us more then a day. Someone was always close to you, you went with us on holidays, especially the ones on Texel stood out, where you had seen the ocean for the first time, and we could barely hold you because this is what you wanted! And we gave it to you a few times. You also liked to jump in the ice cold waters in Belgium, sit with us in the bath in Groningen, walk through the forests in Germany (you actually took me up the hills you know, with your strength and enthusiasm to see what was behind the top).
You were never afraid of the fireworks, we helped you in your younger years to not be scared, and till the last fireworks sparked, you were never ever afraid of it.
You learned that when we said: “Run” you took your leash in your mouth and started to run as hard as you could. You outran everyone easily and then you just ran back and forth. You had so much energy always and always wanted to come along outside. You loved traveling in the car, you were already in the car sometimes before the blink of an eye. As if you wanted to say: I am there, I am waiting for you, lets go!
Swiming was a big passion of you, you once took a swim and almost crossed to the other end of the “Waal”, I got instructed to drop my clothes and swim after you, because it didn’t look like you wanted to return. After some calling and waiting patiently, you returned to the end we were on. As if you wanted to say: I just inspected the other end, it was fun and now I am back.
You also were always with us in the house, when we were in the kitchen, you were there as well. Not in the most convient place ofcourse, but visible, feelable and well, you could not be missed. If friends come over to play a game, you were under the table, lying closely to them or even on their feet. If the weather was hot outside, you lay on the loungechairs, like a princess, unable to miss you. Or when the kids had the pool setup, you wanted to play with the water as well. A water playing game? you were in it!
I become quite ill in 2016, I could barely walk and my world was spinning around constantly. I could not do much, but the one thing that I had to do frequently, is walk with you. I heard from the physians, that normally elderly who have this, recover in +/- 2 years. You helped me recover in a year. When I walked all around the roads and almost walked into the creeks, you were next to me, preventing me from tripping in, and going around all those people that thought I was drunk. I was not, but my illness made it look like it. You were the supporting one always.
In that period, our cat Max came to your life, you could not get any puppies, but still for some reason you had to change someones life again. You began to give milk, and Max drank this from you. The both of you walked happily outside together. Max always hid from you and then jumped from behind a tree or something and you always got scared a bit. And then happily continued your journey. it is a thing we will never forget!
During the period after, you slowly developed artrosis, we tried a lot of medications, but somehow, it did not actually help that much. What helped is with the help of Natasha, an animal chiropractor, you could do many more things, even without medication. What a life safer!
2 years ago, we adopted a second dog, Saar. You strongly and surely helped to raise her. You played with her, eventhough it was not easy for you sometimes, and helped her when she did things that were not allowed. Then a year ago, Lotje came into our life, and you helped her grow up as well.
But we also saw you slowly taking steps back. You became more and more held back, you started sleeping more often and a few weeks ago you started drinking more and more, and also peeing more. You could not handle the two young dogs and showed your boundaries much quicker (you did not actually have them at all!).
Looking back, the period that you became worse, grew quicker then we imagined. We decided to take you to the vets to see what appeared to be not entirely you anymore. The grin on your face was gone, you seemed tired, and sad. The verdict was quite surprising, you looked healthy from the outside, except that you could not stand easily, which was likely due to the artrosis. But we decided to do a blood test as well.
Unexpectedly, the result was that you were severe diabetic. We learned that on friday, and we needed to decide what to do next. With a lot of grief we decided that we should let you go. Not because we wanted to, but we saw that we could never help you get back to who you were. Doing a very intensive support, would have made your life more difficult as well.
And now I write this ’letter’ to you as a rememberance, you, who I and we all in the family loved dearly.
Dear Puc, you had a great heart, and with heavy heart, a lot of love and tears, we had let you go. We were all with you, Julia, Bram, Luca, Denise, Saar, Lotje and myself. We supported you on the most important trip you were ever going to make, without us.
You will be in our hearts forever, sleep well my dearly beloved friend that was always happy when I or we come home whenever time it was at the day. We miss you! We love you!
Rest in peace, we will meet again! Remko & fam