Today would have been our 10th Anna-versary together. But I'm not going to wallow in self-pity or ask for sympathy, even though I'm a little teary-eyed at the moment. Instead, I choose to honour her memory by celebrating all that was special about her: her grace, her kindness, her beauty, her friendliness, her playfulness - in short, her Anna-ness.
I don't know hardly anything about her first year before she ended up at the Ottawa Humane Society - all I know was that she had one litter at the tender age of less-than-one, and that she was picked up as a stray on the road to Hawkesbury. Was she abandoned, or did she make her escape from a puppy mill? At least she had a much better life with me and Sam than she would have had as a baby-making machine. And I know that there are little Annas walking around - in fact, whenever I used to see a dog that looked like her, I used to wonder if it was one of hers. Who knows? They would be about ten years old by now.
So raise your glasses and toast her memory with me: here's to Anna forever!