Dora, age 15½
Dora came from El Centro — the same city where Grandma Elise and Grandpa Phil live, flat and dry and a long way from the ocean. She had been a stray, so nobody knew exactly when she was born. The best guess was sometime in the fall of 2008. She was brought up to a shelter in Encinitas, and that’s where Mama found her, on February 18, 2010. Mama was working at the shelter at the time. She came home and that was her home from then on.
Dylan wasn’t born yet when Dora arrived. She had six years to herself first. She went to obedience training like a good dog. She walked on the beach and at the harbor. She chased other dogs in the way that dogs do. Then Dylan came along, and suddenly there was a baby in the house, and Dora adjusted, the way dogs do. The baby became a boy, and the boy grew up with a dog — the way the lucky ones do. You don’t always notice that kind of luck when you’re in the middle of it.
In December 2023, the vet found lymphoma. It meant Dora’s time was getting short. Papa's birthday is December 13th, and he took the day off work that year. One of the things he wanted to do was take Dora for a walk — get her outside, into the air, give her some enjoyment while she still could. That’s a quiet kind of love, the kind that doesn’t make a big deal of itself. You just take the dog for a walk.
Dora died on March 8, 2024, at home, with Mama and Papa beside her. She was about fifteen and a half years old, which is a very long life for a dog. She had a good life and a family that loved her.