In Memoriam

Our dog Nyssa passed away today. She was 15 years old, and had been suffering from heart disease for a while, and it finally took her.

We adopted Nyssa from the Humane Society of Utah during December of 1999. We wanted a small dog or a puppy, but all they had were big dogs. We finally decided to take one more look and found her in a cage with a very large dog, cowering over in the corner. Her previous owner had named her Raisin, but we soon decided to rename her after one of Dr. Who's companions. When we took her outside before adopting her, we noticed that she was only using 3 legs and wondered if something was wrong. Turns out she was very fastidious about keeping her feet warm and dry, and because of the snow on the ground she didn't want to get her delicate feet cold. She was 5 years old at the time that we adopted her.

I have been remembering her and the fun times we had together today. One time Tiffany and I took her up Mueller Park Canyon in Bountiful, and let her off the leash while we hiked up the canyon wearing our snowshoes. She ran back an forth on the trail, and by the time we turned around she had probably gone 3 or 4 times the distance that we had hiked.

She enjoyed scrounging in the trash whenever possible. One Thanksgiving she was able to open the cupboard door to retrieve the turkey carcass and enjoyed picking away at the bones. Another time she fetched a dirty diaper from the trash - I discovered her with poop spread all over her muzzle. She was also especially fond of used Kleenex.

We have had some great rambles together. The Pinehurst area has some good hills and nice places to wander, and everyone who saw her commented on how well-behaved she was. She liked to bark at squirrels in the back yard, and to chase away the birds that had come to feed at our bird feeder. She was also very protective of her family, including challenging any visitor who happened to shake hands with her "mom" or "dad".

Nyssa had a vacuum phobia. As long as the vacuum was silent and immobile, she ignored it, but as soon as it was plugged in and turned on she would dash in and nip the bumper or some other part of it. The Smiths were tending her once, and she successfully removed the bumper from their vacuum with a speedy and concerted attack.

Her terrier instincts were apparent any time we presented her with a furry squeaky toy. Most toys with squeakers didn't last for more than 15 minutes before she successfully killed them. She also loved to play fetch and hide and seek with a tennis ball. Robert would hide the ball somewhere in the house and then tell her to find it and she would locate it nine times out of ten.

She had a large vocabulary: kennel, ball, walk, upstairs, downstairs, bed, out, down, treat, no, good dog, to name a few of the words that she knew.

She was ever hopeful that food would fall her way when I was cooking in the kitchen. She watched very closely anytime there was any cooking going on, and could be roused from a nap by a muttered "oops" when something fell on the floor. One time I dropped a butter horn roll from the cookie sheet where it was rising and she snarfed it up. She then spent most of the night un-snarfing it - we had quite a mess to clean up.

She loved to snuggle and cuddle, especially at night. Our bedroom was her favorite place to hang out. Around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, she would come to us and indicate that she wanted to go to bed and that we should too. She also loved to have Robert put her out to "do her duty," because he always gave her treats after. Sometimes she convinced him 3 times in half an hour that she needed to go out, just to get her treat.

Last week I had a mostly empty popcorn bag on my sewing table, which somehow got brushed to the floor. A bit later, I heard some rustling under the table. She had found the bag and was actually wearing it - it was on her head, with the little left-over pieces of popcorn cascading down her shoulders. She couldn't figure out how to get it off her head, so I finally had to help her out in between laughs and giggles.

One of her favorite perches was the back of the upstairs couch. The cushion is permanently bowed from where she enjoyed laying on it. In the last few months when she has been ill, she slept there with her head lower than the rest of her body. We think that maybe it helped to get blood to her brain.

She has had a heart murmur for a while - the vet has mentioned it off and on over the years. About six months ago it started to get worse, and she went into congestive heart failure. We dosed her up with several high powered medicines, including a diuretic, and she was doing moderately well. We had to curtail her activities, such as walks, because when she got over-stimulated she would have fainting spells. She has been slowly declining, but was still enjoying life until about a week ago, when she started fainting just walking down the hall or down the stairs. The vet found that she had a heart arrhythmia in addition to the murmur, and that she was slowly dying from a lack of oxygen.

Special thanks to McGrath Animal Hospital; to Dan and Tiffany and Lisa for helping out when we had to travel and leave her; for the Squires and O'Briens for opening their homes to her; to Rob and Sadie and the kids for helping out; to Crystal H. and our neighbors the Ferri Family for watching her; and to everyone who has loved her as much as we did.

Nyssa, we love you and know that "all dogs go to heaven." We hope you are chasing rabbits and running to your heart's content now.

Nyssa loved to lay and cuddle on quilts. She would often work carefully by pulling them here and there until they were in just the right pile for her to lay on.


Nyssa on the couch, one of her favorite places to nap.


We tried her out in a dog run to see if she could be left during the day. She was happy and content as long as we were in sight, but barked and whined when we left her.


Nyssa is eating her dinner. While she was eating dry dog food, she would snatch the first few bites out of the bowl and then spit them out on the floor, where she would then eat them, all pieces except a few small ones. I had to regularly sweep up the leavings.


Ever-hopeful Nyssa in the kitchen waiting for someone to drop something on the floor for her to eat.