Tasha the poodle came to us in May of 1997 along with her mom, Tiffany. Tasha was tiny when we got her. I think she weighed all of five pounds. I was always afraid that I’d somehow hurt her.

Timid as she was, and kind of dull personality-wise compared with Tiffany, Tasha still managed to work herself into my heart. She’d come by and look at me with those adoring eyes and there’s no way I couldn’t love her. She wasn’t particularly snuggly towards me, but when she did curl up with me she’d just sprawl out. She’d lie there for as long as I’d pet her. Crazy little poodle.

The thing we’ll remember the most about Tasha, though, is that she always put Charlie in his place. That’s right, our six pound toy poodle kept our 70 pound pit bull in line. If he ran her over, she’d get up and give him a nasty scolding. More than once she ended up literally hanging from his lip, she bit so hard. That was quite a trick, too, considering that she didn’t have a whole lot of teeth left. Charlie always looked properly contrite. He’d shake his head and slink away carefully so as not to incur her wrath again.

Tasha was sick a lot. She had a collapsed trachea, enlarged heart, hip problems, back problems, and undoubtedly other problems of which I know nothing. When we got Charlie five years ago, we thought Tasha was on her last legs. Charlie perked her up, though, and she was quite spry for the next few years. Last summer she got sick and bounced back. Same thing happened again in November. We’d think, “this is it,” but somehow she’d miraculously recover.

But not today. She’d been deterioriating quickly over the last several days, and this morning she wasn’t moving well at all. A few hours at the vet and we determined that she just wasn’t going to get better this time. Something was causing the bones in her vertebrae to deteroriate, making it increasingly difficult for her to walk or stand. There was nothing that the doctors could do for her. They told us that they couldn’t even understand how she’d lasted this long.

We cried. Of course we did. But we couldn’t watch her in pain any longer. We petted her and said goodbye, and held her as the doctor administered the shot. Tasha was a part of our family, a source of amusement and a loyal friend. We will miss her.