You asked for dog "stories", so please bear with me.

Prior to our present dogs, we had two others, Rupert and Sadie, an occasionally white, father and daughter mix of Maltese, Wirehaired Terrier and Lhaso Apso. My husband always joked that when they died, he was going to have them made into large fluffy bedroom slippers.

Neither of these dogs was particularly bright or talented, although Rupert had a knack for getting into difficult situations on occasion (one of which, involved me taking a plunge into an icy river after he had been swept over a waterfall). They were however, much loved.

By the time Rupert turned 14, he was stone deaf, (something that seems to happen to our dogs). I don't know if it is the result of the sound levels of the music in this house or just a predilection of the small breeds that we have managed to collect over the years. However, it should be noted, our daughters' Teddy Bear Hamster was found dead the morning after a rather loud jam session. Unfortunately, the cage was perched on one of the amplifiers. (My poor husband, even after all these years, still feels he has a lot of karma to work off).

Rupert's deafness and failing eyesight was of concern to us and we had been discussing what should be done with him, as he no longer came when he was called and we were concerned with his tendency to go on, sometimes, very long "walk-abouts" in our rural neighborhood. We decided that he was in no pain, despite his handicaps, so we would just confine him to the house except, for jaunts outside on leash.

One morning, shortly after this discussion, we had just given him an uncustomary bath and grooming and in a panic, noticed that he had managed to slip out a door left open by small children. We discovered that, on his usual visit to our neighbour across the road, Rupert had probably failed to hear an oncoming car and our first fluffy bedroom slipper was deposited ceremoniously in a resting place beneath the large maple tree in our front yard.

Sadie, his daughter, lived on until the ripe (and I use that word deliberately) old age of 17 years. For most of her life, she was one of those dogs that never seemed to cause any trouble whatsoever and for that matter, was not even particularly personable, consequently, at times, you tended to forget about her existence. Sadie just was.

With an upcoming Christmas to prepare for, along with two small children, I finally decided that it was becoming too much for me to look after our snoring odiferous couch potato. She had an oozing growth on her chest and had finally lost all control of her bladder and I was beginning to flag under the constant cleaning of dog and furniture.

On the last day of school, prior to the Christmas holidays, I made an appointment to take her to the Vet and load up on groceries for the Holiday. I set off with Sadie and my youngest daughter's coveted "Aminy Blanket", with which to wrap her for the last ride home. It was a very difficult shopping trip.

Unpredictably, on the drive to town it started to snow and by the time I had finished all my "errands", the snow was beginning to pile up. I decided to pick up my daughters from school early, as the school buses do not run in our neighbourhood, when there was any great accumulation. Upon my arrival, I was further delayed at the school, because the staff had decided, due to the weather, to cancel the evening's Christmas Concert and hold it in the in the afternoon instead. For awhile, I was lost in the wonderful sound of children caroling and forgot all about my sad bundle in the car.

We finally headed for home and I was confronted with further deteriorating road conditions and two very upset little girls, one particularly, even more distressed, because Sadie's rather malodorous old body had been wrapped in her precious blanket.

One of last stretches of road to where we live is a long steep grade, which I can usually make in the snow, if I can maintain constant speed on the uphill climb. Not so this day. When we were almost to the top, we met a shit for brains, joy riding 4X4er coming sideways down the hill towards us. Consequently, I had to pull to the deep snow on the edge of the road to avoid being hit, and there I lodged, crying children, numerous bags of Christmas larder and dead dog.

Upon abandoning the vehicle, amidst the further tears of my children, I explained that we would have to carry our fast disintegrating bags of groceries for the last half mile stretch up hill to home and that, "No, we couldn't manage to carry Sadie too", and that they "Shouldn't worry about leaving her in the car in the snowbank, it was really cold out" and it was "OK, this was sort of thing they did to bodies in morgues" and "Nobody was going to steal Ceilidh's "Aminy Blanket" and even if they did, "They were going to be in for a helluva surprise."

We were trudging along, with many stops to retrieve the various tins that were working their way out of the bottom of the bags, when we were rescued by a neighbour in his 4X4 and we gratefully piled ourselves and groceries into the back of the truck for the trip to our driveway. I stayed with the groceries at the bottom of the drive, while the girls went up to the house to get their flying saucer sleds to pile the Christmas goodies on. While I was waiting, I was greeted by the neighbour's Golden Retriever, who promptly liberated a garlic sausage ring from the pile of groceries. After a brief chase and tug-of-war, I returned, but Sage had got the lion's share of his prize.

That night we promised the girls that I would rescue Sadie the following morning, when the weather cleared. The following day I tundled out, pulling the saucer sled to unbury the car and bring Sadie home. After digging it out and chipping the ice from a frozen door I loaded her on the sled for the final trek up hill. The incline caused her now frozen bundled body to constantly roll from the sled and skid back down the hill. Eventually I abandoned the sled as a dumb idea and carried her the rest of the way.

My husband explained to the girls that because of the weather we would have to postpone Sadie's funeral, so Sadie "laid in state" for another week on a table under an overhang at the front of the house. Eventually the dog who for most of her life, had never been a problem, was buried with our other "bedroom slipper" under the maple tree and Ceilidh finally got her freshly laundered "Aminy Blanket" back.