for carly

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if you follow me on instagram then you know last week we helped carly transition out of this life. our vet graciously offered to make a house call and it felt right that carly would stay here with us; as it turns out there was something comforting about preparing for the burial ahead of time, something we’ve never had the luxury of doing. dave oversaw the grave, i made a cake and a flower crown and together we crafted a hemp shroud. and on a beautiful sunny day with carly sprawled across our laps with a crown atop her head and a belly full of cake we said goodbye to our girl.


from the moment i met carly i knew she was trouble, in every bad and good way imaginable (and unimaginable), and she did not disappoint. carly did not have a medium setting…she was full on or asleep every.single.day of her life with us. her zest for life proved difficult to navigate toward the end as we were trying to weigh her quality of life against her pain level. we had been waiting for carly to make a slow progression toward the end (as we’ve witnessed countless times) but what hit me was that carly had never been like anyone else. carly was a full on source of life from day one and she wasn’t going to slow down like everyone else. carly was going to voraciously eat every meal, go out with us on the walk and come out to work with us…it was just going to be at a much lower carly percentage. that was slowing down for carly and since carly had always danced to the beat of her own drum her progression from this life was going to be all hers as well.


because of her unique demeanor it’s a pretty good bet carly is the most oft written about member of our family here. her antics are as well known as her loving nature; how a being swings wildly from illicit ingestions and subsequent emergency room visits to starting all out brawls to being the most loving welcoming committee any dog has ever known is beyond me. how she fit all the parts of her personality into one body befuddles me - but she didn’t really - she was always oozing something and the only thing you could count on was it would be either horrible or wonderful (every once in a while it was inexplicably both).


she made our house more colorful, more loving and much louder and required us to be on our toes at all times. she was like living with a wild beast in the most amazing way imaginable. nothing was nothing to carly…it was all something…she was what legends are made of.

it’s been almost two weeks and i still can’t tell you what life without her looks like because i’m just plowing forward with my head down. i know there will never be another like her and along with my grief is the absolute honor and gratitude that we were the ones she shared her life with. sail on my sweet girl...

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2 comment(s)
Susan Mansour-Hammond March 16, 2017 6:55 AM reply
My heart breaks for you and Dave. I know what it is like to lose that once in a lifetime dog. Love, Susan

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