When our old cocker, Mandy, died, I know I had trouble with the same kind of reconciliations. She was fourteen, she couldn't hear, she was getting arthritis in the hips and the vet said she'd stroked out. They didn't even have to sedate her. We'd neglected her terribly those last few years (me at college, sister in high school), and I think that's why we're putting so much into crazy Miley now. We regret, even though we loved our dumb-as-a-post dog so much. When we moved to NY, I actually found Mandy's collar in a box of random stuff. Tim wanted to throw it out, but I wouldn't let him. Just because.

Dogs are family, and it's never easy to let them go, even when they've had such a long and fulfilled life.