Sugar Pie Vail was born on November 22, 2006. Her mother was a yellow lab, and her father a wayward golden retriever. I always said she was half lab, half golden, all retriever, but only if it was a tennis ball, of which she fetching many. Not only fast, but that dog could hunt and eventually found the errant ones.

On March 3rd, Super Tuesday, our precious doggie passed away at age 13. She’d been showing her age and seemed to have a stroke the night before needing a sedative to sleep. ML took her into our vet who agreed it was time, but kindly waited ’til I came in from work and voting.

Here are some pix of Sugar Pie as a puppy in Southern California, before we moved north…

Here are some more pix of the old girl as an adult. With all the hikes and freedom, she had a pretty good life. Tho’ rather shed-worthy she was a sweet and lovable, and a wonderful companion. We knew the inevitable, but I was still surprised by my grief…

Above, tree’s too die. The beautiful oak in the picture with the green grass fell down when we were on our trip, which you can see in the pic with Sugar & Veronica. Speaking of fallen trees, I threw in a cute one of the kids too on a buckeye that had also fallen (doubtless Sugar was there with us).

Sugar’s last day…