I put out a tribute in my recent newsletter and felt it also needed to be in the blog for our beautiful Chocolate Labrador Retriever Saviah.  We had to let her go on Friday 30 Aug and our hearts are still heavy missing her.  She was the best dog ever for almost 14 years.  When my kids and I returned from an overseas tour I bought her as a Christmas present for us.  The kids were gone for a few days visiting their dad. They came walking in the door and there was this ball of chocolate with a big bow around her neck.  They shrieked with joy and said “A Puppy!”

Saviah immediately became one of the family.  I had heard the name Saviah when I was in England.  It was the daughter of one of the guys in my Harley group.  I thought it would be a great name for a girl but knew I wasn’t going to have anymore kids so the 4 legged kid got the name. We all instantly bonded with her.  The first night I put her in the kitchen with some papers and a bed I made out of blankets.  She started yelping and crying which made my daughter cry.  She rarely slept on the floor after that.

Her personality was mischievous like most Lab’s.  She ate socks and would steal loaves of bread off the counter and would strategically plan an attack to steal pizza or a sandwich right off your plate.  She ate things like wasabi and one Christmas she ate a whole candy dish full of chocolate still wrapped in the foil.  We came home to find the candy all gone and it had been hours.  She was totally fine. Nothing phased her.

She would shove the bathroom door open and climb in the tub with the kids and I would hear “MOM!  SAVIAH!”  I’d run to the bathroom to find her sitting in the tub not understanding why she was not suppose to be in there.  After all she was a water dog.  If you wanted to take a shower you had to plan a quick run.  Otherwise she would wait outside the bathroom door and as soon as she heard the shower door pop open she burst through the door and ran into the show to lay down.  She loved the water of course.

We often took her and my sisters dog Samoa to a place called Three Rivers outside of Alamogordo NM.  We would go to Walmart, grab some chicken strips and fixins and head out for a picnic so the dogs could run and swim.  Saviah was in and out of the water.  I did get her a large metal tub that was suppose to be for drinking water but she just climbed inside of it and sloshed around in it.

I would hear crashing and banging in the hallway and run to see what it was and I would find her and my son rolling up the hallway wrestling.  She had a “destructo-tail” and could clear a table or anything in her path with that tail.  She would come in the bedroom when she wanted to go out and bang it against the door to wake you up to feed her.

There are so many wonderful memories we shared with her as a family.  In the last few years arthritis started to slow her down.  We thought she was a goner a couple months ago but then she suddenly pulled out of it and walked out to the grass by my place to let me know she was staying.  That was when the photo on the left was taken. The photo on the right was taken earlier this year.

Our lives were so enriched by her being a part of our family.  We will never be the same without her and only time will heal the empty space in our hearts.  Thank you Saviah for blessing us with your life.  We will miss you.