Elle was a Blue Heeler & Border Collie mix. I got her in Mt. Shasta,CA when I was 19 years old, I spent most of the summer there that year just camping and living a kind of a vagabond life. I had always had dogs as a kid and would always get incredibly attached to them, so to say I am a dog person would be an understatement. Anyway, one night sleeping there under the stars I had a dream that I got a puppy. The next morning motivated by that dream I rode my skateboard a couple of miles into town and promptly found a woman with a box full of dogs, I was not surprised... I looked in the box and immediately fell in love with the smallest, laziest dog in the box. While all of her brothers and sisters were wrestling over top of her, she just laid there quietly. She was clearly the runt, the only one with any brown, and I loved her! I looked at the woman with my naive wanna-be-hippy eyes and said, "can I have her?" The woman looked at me like I was crazy, as if to say, "uh, yeah; that's why we have have them in a box in front of the grocery store." But kindly just replied, "of course."

Elle went everywhere with me for the next 12 years. She was the most loyal and consistent friend I had ever had, until I met my wife, who quickly became just as attached to Elle as me. She had such great spirit, everyone loved her within moments of meeting her. We always knew what she would do in any situation and totally trusted her. Whether she was protecting us from bears, playing with one of our many nieces & nephews, or just going for a stroll Elle was completely reliable. It makes us very sad that our daughter didn't get to know her better, Elle passed away on January 8, 2013 and our daughter was just 5 weeks old.

Elle had pretty bad arthritis in all four legs for several years, which we were able to manage. She became diabetic about a year ago, and we were finally able to get it under control with the proper insulin dosage about 6 months ago. But one day she started hacking water up every time she drank it, and we just knew it was bad. After multiple vet visits, countless blood tests, ultrasounds and a scope we finally figured out that she had severe mega-esophagus, for which there is no cure for and her other problems, severe arthritis & diabetes, would only compound the problems. She deteriorated quickly and we decided to let her go about 9 days after the hacking began. One of Elle's tests came back after she was gone, and she had tested positive for myasthenia gravis. We feel confident that we did what was best for Elle, but our hearts are broken!

We miss you Elle, and we love you!!!

Craig & Sarah E.