Farewell, Dear Friend

Our beloved Zekie died this past Tuesday peacefully at home. He was 13 1/2 years old, which as I calculated, is an impressive 94.5 dog years.

I won't lie, the past couple of days have been rough. I had personally known Zeke for over 10 years, which is nearly 1/3 of my life. When I think about how long I knew and cared for him, it is no wonder his absence is saddening. I met Zeke shortly after I met Rob. Rob adopted Zeke from an animal shelter in Baltimore during college when he was about a year old (Zeke, not Rob).

Sometimes I like to joke that I fell in love with Zeke before I fell in love with Rob. While I am not sure that is true, Zeke was my first doggie love. Sure, we had a couple of dogs growing up but I was a cat person and mostly tolerated the presence of the dogs. Zeke was the first dog I actually felt like hanging out with. He was the reason I ended up with Katie. If one dog was so awesome, why not get two?

Before Rob and I had kids, the dogs were our kids. We took them on road trips to visit family, we took them camping and even to ward activities. We even took them to get their picture taken with Santa at PetSmart.

Zekie will be truly missed. We are ever grateful for the joy he brought into our lives.

Below are some pictures of Zeke and his life with us.

Parker (almost 2 yrs.) and Zeke. Parker was a big fan of Zeke from the time he was little.

Zeke tolerated many of Parker's toddler antics.

The three Stooges.

Best buds.

Look closely and you will see Pedro the rabbit next to Zeke. Zeke was a lover not a fighter, then again, there was the incident with the mouse...

Marin was always on the lookout for a sleepy Zeke.