Our Dear Morgy Dog

I know that I owe you more than a few blog posts about the last day of my bike trip and the aftermath. I admit that I've been putting them off but I promise they're coming. I didn't want to blog about other things until I'd wrapped up Bike America. But something came up and it's much more important than anything else right now.

My family dog, Morgan, was put to sleep this afternoon in his sixteenth year of life. He was a wonderful, loving, and loyal animal who was a bundle of energy up until his final few months. He lived a long, full life but he was incredibly old and was in poor health. He was blind, deaf, and very unaware of the world and life around him. On Friday, my parents took him to the vet and were told that it was time to put him down. They brought him home and arranged for Josh and I to come over for dinner on Sunday to say goodbye.

Dancing at the beach house!

Merry Christmas Morgy!

Pre-gaming with Morgy

During dinner, we drank a bottle of wine called "Morgan" which our friends had given my parents when they moved away from Morgan Drive, where they lived a block away. Morgan, who was named after our street, lived the first ten years of his life there. We saved the wine for a long time and decided it was appropriate to drink in his honor while we celebrated his life.

Easter in 1997. Morgy was 5 months old.

We called Nathan on speaker phone and went around the table telling our favorite Morgan memories. We all had many to share and they were great ones. They made us laugh and they made us cry. Part of me wants to list them all but I know that they are most special in our hearts and in our memories, shared around a table by the people who loved this dog for his entire life (and Josh who loved him for the past few years).

On a road trip to Vermont.

After a run together.

Many of our stories told about what a weirdo our dog was. He fit in with the rest of us well. Here he is hanging out like a weirdo with Josh and Nicole when he spent a week living with us in Gainesville.

Leaving the house was hard last night. I had never done this before and I didn't know how to say goodbye. I have felt silly being so emotional because he is a dog and so many people go through this. I knew that he was old and I knew this was coming. But I have shed a lot of tears in his honor in the past 24 hours. Even a few at my desk this morning as I thought about him in his last few hours of life. 

I know it was hard for Nathan not to be there with us last night. I know it was hard for my mom to say goodbye before she left for work this morning and I think it was hardest for my dad, who was there with him right at the end. They are the ones who will have to live in that house without him and it will feel empty for a while.

Our last photo with him.

And at the risk of getting emotional and sharing too much with the internet, I wanted to write these words in his memory. He was the best dog we could have imagined. He was crazy, weird, and beautiful. He wasn't the best trained animal there ever was and we never made him do any silly tricks. We treated him like a dog but we also treated him like an important part of our family. From the first night he spent in our home, with a clock ticking in his crate to replace his mother's heart beat, to the last, he was one of us. We will miss him dearly and remember him always.  <3 p="p">