Hannah

Taking the advice of our (soon to be) Realtor, we've started 'decluttering' our house. I wouldn't say I'm a complete pack rat but I do have some problems with keeping useless crap around because it has some obscure sentimental value or because 'we might need that someday.'

The beat up trophy pictured above falls into the sentimental category and I've been holding onto it for many years now. Today I decided that taking a picture of the beat up old thing and telling it's little story would take care of my sentimental attachment and finally let me get rid of it. What follows is its story (and yes, I did finally toss it).

I couldn't have been much older than 7 or so when we got Hannah. My parents picked me up after soccer practice and we rushed out to see the puppies because we were told that "they were going really fast." We got to the house and there were at least 14 puppies that were going nowhere fast. But the pups were adorable and the mother, Angel, was an extreemly sweet dog. Who knows if things might have been different if we had met Bear, the father, but he wasn't there that day and cute little Hannah puppy came home with us. In many ways she was like her mom - a truly a sweet and loving dog - however, she also had a rambunctious and destructive side. My mom took her to a dog training class and she actually failed it (to put this in perspective - even Bowen passed his class with no problem). Determined as she was, my mom took Hannah back to the next offering of the very same class. The second time around Hannah wasn't the star student by any means but she did manage pass. On the last day of class the instructor presented Hannah with the little trophy as an award for 'most improved.' Ironically, a few years later Hannah somehow got the trophy and chewed it up just enough to give it her own personal touch.

Another part of my decluttering effort was to take some of my old 35mm negatives to Costco to be converted to digital. Coincidently, among a buch of unrelated shots, I found this one picture of Hannah in her latter years. She really was a sweet and lovable dog.

Many years later (and after Hannah's passing) Kari and I drove to Nebraska to pick up our first dog. We'd picked out little the little puppy a few weeks before and had decided to name her Hailie. We didn't know it but the breeder had given all the puppies names already and little Hailie's birth name was Hannah. Perhaps it's nothing more than coincidence but I've always felt like there was something more to it - that perhaps Hannah was somehow looking out for little Hailie. Who knows? But they are both sweet and snuggly girls and they both went gray way before their time.