{"id":26016,"date":"2012-06-24T03:56:12","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T08:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26016"},"modified":"2012-06-24T05:24:39","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T10:24:39","slug":"saying-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/24\/saying-goodbye\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying Goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was mid-August of 2000 and I was excited about leaving my parents’ house and starting out on my own.\u00a0 Excited, but scared.\u00a0 With my new independence I went out and did something I had always wanted to do but wasn’t allowed to while living with my parents.\u00a0 I went to the shelter and adopted a dog.\u00a0 My sister and my boyfriend at the time came with me and we saw this big adorable puppy in the back of a cage, being completely overshadowed by a much smaller but loud barking dog.\u00a0 He tried to approach so we could pet him and the small dog nipped at him and he cowered to the back of the cage again.\u00a0 We looked into his soulful eyes and knew he was ours, fleas, parasites, kennel cough, and all.\u00a0 We named him Mudhoney.\u00a0 The vet said he was a little less than a year old and a mix of what they thought was a Golden Retriever and Chow.<\/p>\n

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He was never an overly rambunctious sort of puppy though he loved to play.\u00a0 He would chew his big raw hide bones and tearing the squeaker out of stuffed animal squeaky toys made him so excited!\u00a0 He would bow down to you to get you to play and he loved to be pet just above his tail.<\/p>\n

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My boyfriend and I moved in together and across the country.\u00a0 He traveled almost all the time for his job but I felt safe at home because of my dog.\u00a0 He was the best dog you could ask for.\u00a0 He went every where with me!\u00a0 We had doggie play dates and hung out all the time at the dog park and went hiking in the mountains.\u00a0 Whenever it snowed he would go into the yard and use his nose to throw snow into the air.\u00a0 It was his own snowball fight with himself!\u00a0 With his thick double coat he’d lay out in the snow and I would have to call him over and over to convince him to come inside.<\/p>\n

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Sadly the very day we moved into our new place Mudhoney jumped over the fence and ran into the street.\u00a0 He was hit by a car who looked back but didn’t even stop.\u00a0 I was picking up family at the airport so as soon as I got home with the car we rushed him to an emergency vet.\u00a0 He was very lucky to have only suffered a broken leg.\u00a0 He had to wear a cone for quite a while as it healed which he was not happy about but looked pathetically cute.\u00a0 He did heal but his leg always bothered him a bit after that and he started to distrust strangers more and more.\u00a0 We adopted another dog a year later and our new dog was much more energetic.\u00a0 Times twenty.\u00a0 She destroyed furniture and had potty training issues and jumped on the kitchen table despite being 90 lbs.\u00a0 We always said our dogs were just like Shadow and Chance from Homeward Bound.\u00a0 Mudhoney was a wonderful big brother to her, but soon after that he didn’t like dogs he didn’t know quite as much either.<\/p>\n

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Life went on with me, my boyfriend, and our two dogs.\u00a0 We were a family.\u00a0 My boyfriend made that official by proposing and Jason and I knew we had to include our dogs in our wedding in some way.\u00a0 We were going to be married in the church so having them as part of the ceremony wasn’t allowed.\u00a0 So we dressed them in a tux and gown and took pictures and used the photo as our Save the Date cards. (I’ll have to find a picture of our actual Save the Dates later but here is an outtake of Mud in his tux):<\/p>\n

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After we were married we moved across the country again to be near family.\u00a0 Soon after we started our own family.\u00a0 When we brought our son home Mudhoney sniffed him with great interest, then loved him forever.\u00a0 His pack grew as we grew our family.\u00a0 We had three more kids and he was there to greet each one as they arrived at their home.\u00a0 He was an amazing family dog.\u00a0 He even chewed his own nails so I didn’t have to cut them!\u00a0 What dog is that awesome?!\u00a0 He would bark at any one coming to our house as a protective family dog should, but when he had\u00a0a toddler pull themselves up on his dog dish and play in it while he tried to eat or a baby sit on his back pulling his ears he was patient and even loving, licking them as a reprimand.\u00a0 It was obvious how much he loved the kids.\u00a0 If people started playing too rough and he thought the kids were going to get hurt, he would bark like crazy!<\/p>\n

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We tested Mudhoney’s patience not just with kids but with a kitten!\u00a0 Jason rescued a tiny kitten from a storm drain not long after we had our first baby.\u00a0 We had a cat before and Mudhoney didn’t mind but she was an older cat so they both did their own things.\u00a0 This kitten took much more of an interest in Mudhoney.\u00a0 Not in our other dog, just Mudhoney.\u00a0 She’d cuddle up to him, she’d purr and stretch her claws at him.\u00a0 He’d look a bit annoyed but laid there as a surrogate parent to a kitten who was just a bit bigger than his paw.<\/p>\n

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He was everything I could have ever wanted in a dog.\u00a0 In a friend, a part of my family.\u00a0 He shared so many of my most special moments in life, from moving out of my parent’s house to getting engaged and getting married, to having my kids and bringing each of them home.\u00a0 He was there for all of it, right by my side.\u00a0 I felt safe with him.\u00a0 He was loyal, protective, loving, patient.\u00a0 He was great for hugs when you were scared or sad.\u00a0 He was there running around when you were happy or excited.\u00a0 You could pay a million dollars and never be able to get a dog as perfect as him.<\/p>\n

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Tonight Mudhoney passed away, suddenly but peacefully.\u00a0 He wasn’t sick, he was even laying with us this afternoon enjoying family time as we played a board game with the kids.\u00a0 He was 13 years old and I was able to share 12 of those years with him.\u00a0 I am heart-broken.\u00a0 Our family is heart-broken.\u00a0 Though it is a blessing that he went so quickly and peacefully without having to suffer through illness, it means we were completely taken by surprise.\u00a0 I don’t think you can ever feel prepared but… there are truly no words for what went through me when I saw him tonight.<\/p>\n

Mud-Mud, you were the best dog in the entire world.\u00a0 You are so loved and will be so missed.\u00a0 Enjoy all the squeaky toys and snow to nose at and hiking trails that Heaven has for you, though I know your favorite thing has always been your family and you will always be here with us in our hearts.<\/p>\n

Mudhoney Angelini, August 1999 to June 23, 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“Dear heaven,<\/p>\n

Thank you for letting us have Mudhoney for a long time!\u00a0 I know it was your will for Mudhoney to die.\u00a0 But I really miss him.”<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was mid-August of 2000 and I was excited about leaving my parents’ house and starting out on my own.\u00a0 Excited, but scared.\u00a0 With my new independence I went out and did something I had always wanted to do but wasn’t allowed to while living with my parents.\u00a0 I went to the shelter and adopted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26016"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26046,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26016\/revisions\/26046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonangeliniphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}