Millie

MEMORIAL for MILLIE

When our family decided an English Bulldog was to be part of our future, we decided to begin searching for a rescue Bully that we could make our home a “forever home” for.  We scoured the Internet and eventually found a picture of the most precious Bully.  She tugged at our heart-strings right through the website. We made contact to find out more about “Millie”.  Lone Star Bulldog Rescue is an amazing advocate for these dogs.  They are intent on finding the perfect home, and they are quite good at what they do.  At first, it was suggested that Millie might not be the right fit for us because we had stairs in our home and Millie had a bit of a hard time with stairs.  I was persistent though.  After all, if the stairs were hard, I'd carry her.  Something told me she was destined to be a part of our family.  We scheduled a visit to see how Millie might fit in to our family and our home.  I have to say, it was VERY hard to let her leave that day.  I wanted so badly for her to stay . . . my two little girls felt the same way and so did my husband.  After that visit, we were accepted to be Millie’s new family and to become her new forever home.  We were ecstatic!
 
Millie was definitely a stubborn girl with a mind of her own!  I remember as we began to help her adjust to her new home, Millie's hilarious personality emerged and she kept us laughing from that point forward.  I don’t think I will ever be able to turn on my vacuum cleaner and not think about how she would “protect” us from the 'vacuum monster' – at least that’s how I think she perceived it.  Ha ha!  Millie loved to be with the family for breakfast-time and to greet each of us in the morning, but once all the morning excitement was done she loved to head upstairs to my husband’s office and lay at his feet for a good portion of her day.  Those stairs posed no difficulty to her!  My hunch had been right, after all.  (smiles)  After hearing about Millie’s past miseries in her life, we wanted her to live a life of luxury and I must admit, I took it a little overboard at times. Ha ha!  (Lot's of spoilin'!)  But, I like to think her sweet kisses were a huge thank you and that was more than enough for me!
Discovering that Millie was not quite acting like “herself” never brought to mind the possibility that only a few short days later she would no longer be with us. After blood work, urinalysis and x-rays, shockingly it was determined that our beloved Millie had a cancerous mass in her abdomen that was killing her.  When we were told the news, it was heartbreaking.  Having cared for a dog with cancer before, I knew the days ahead for her would hold much misery and discomfort and that death was most likely imminent.  The last thing we wanted for Millie was suffering.  Our veterinarian said there was really not much they could do for her at that point.  We wanted to stop her suffering so we made the very difficult decision, said our tearful goodbyes and let her go in peace. 

We have been so very blessed to have had Millie in our lives and my only hope is that since adopting her we provided her with a happy, loving family for her to end her days with.  Our hearts are broken and Millie will surely be missed every day.  We find some peace in the belief that she is no longer suffering and is happy and healthy in Heaven.  Because of Lone Star Bulldog Rescue and it’s wonderful, dedicated volunteers we were able to be graced with the presence of all that was; “Millie”.  After I shared the bad news with Millie’s previous foster mom, she sent a thoughtful and comforting email and in it she commented about how Millie had been perfect for our family.  And then, after a quick reflection on some of our funny adjustment moments in the very beginning of the adoption, rescinded that comment by saying; “Well, maybe not perfect.”  But, for the record, she was EXACTLY RIGHT the first time.  Millie was, in fact, PERFECT for us and we cannot thank Lone Star Bulldog Rescue and Paige enough for all their volunteer efforts to help place Millie in our family, in our hearts and in our home.  We will be eternally grateful and we will hold Millie's memory in our hearts forever.

We miss you, our Millie Girl!  We love you so very much and we always will!