Reagan... September 27, 2004 - March 11, 2021

It has taken me a full week to be able to write this post. We had to put Reagan down last Thursday, March 11, 2021. It was so hard to say good-bye to my buddy. She's been with us for almost sixteen in a half years...that's a long time. I miss her terribly, but every day gets a little easier and I can finally talk about her without crying. We miss and love you, Reagan! I'm including some of my favorite photos of her in recent months, just because they make me smile. 

covered with Walker's beloved blankies

waiting for me at the door...I loved seeing her little face, waiting for me there

sleeping on my pillow

in Ben's crevasse - her favorite place to nap/sleep

Always so picky...eating her food off of a towel. However, once Gracie came along, she figured out that she actually can eat food out of a bowl. Especially if it's puppy food. :) 

She always watched for me. She was the most loyal little thing.

Again, waiting for Mom...

...but she always got tired and fell asleep. Being a guard dog is HARD work.

She loved to scratch her face on our pillows. ;) 

Towards the end, Reagan spent a LOT of time on the bed. She would lay here for hours at a time...sometimes into the evening hours. Whenever I exercised, she would lay here, too. 

Hi, Little One.

At least a few times a day, you could find Reagan waiting by the refrigerator, begging for cheese...and by begging, I mean barking. She could really communicate her wants and needs.

An open garbage bag was ALWAYS an invitation for scavenging. She loved to look for food. Her nose never stopped working. :) 

a selfie while on the couch in her favorite spot

sweet baby

my Christmas present from Ben :)

(created from an actual photo)

ALWAYS trying to find a way inside that bunny cage.

again, just waiting for Mom

airport travel back in August

The day of her demise...Reagan had a horrible time trying to catch her breath. That's how we knew it was time. It was an awful, hard day and I just wanted to hold her the whole time. 

Walker has had the hardest time, as he has the most sensitive soul. He misses her; he sleeps with his pillowcase that has her face on it and a pillow with her image on it that was given to us when Ben was in the hospital. He loved her so, even though she didn't quite love him back. ;) She licked a lot of his tears that last day (and, well, she licked Lainey's and mine, too), but her lips did curl upwards into a snarl a few times...as this was her normal approach to the kids. Especially when I was holding her. She was very protective of her mama. :) 

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A few things I remember about her...the good, the bad, and the ugly

• Reagan has been with us since before our wedding...she came to me in a stocking just before Christmas, 2004. I carry a picture in my wallet of the two of us, taken just before I got my wedding photos done. 

• She's been to Colorado so many times. One time, in Colorado, she had to get practically shaved at the vet because she picked up so many sticker burrs. And they didn't really have dog groomers in Pagosa Springs at the time. 

• Another time going to Colorado, we almost got stuck on the highway overnight in a snowstorm...thankfully we made it to a hotel. (I was pregnant with Lainey at the time!)

• She loved to lick. :) Anyone and anything (including her feet). Especially salty tears or sweaty bodies. 

• She frequently would express her own anal glands when she was nervous. She would do this on car trips, always when we pulled into gas stations. She would only drink out of Dixie cups and bottle caps on car trips.

• She's survived a lot of things: jumping out of a car, falling in our pool, getting her leg slammed in a door (by Tuck...sorry, Tuck), being attacked by a rottweiler-ish dog who snapped her leg in two, getting out of the house four or five times (she loved to run/walk out of open doors). 

• This past summer, she almost went into the river because she felt that a group of tubers was going to attack us. :) She barked and barked to warn them to back off!

• We have her face on two pillowcases, a pillow, and a pair socks. And I have a digital picture of her (that looks like a watercolor painting) that Ben got me for Christmas. 

• She always barked at me as if she was trying to communicate - she would "arf arf arf" then wait in silence for me to reply. Then she would repeat the process. Sometimes she gave me the side eye when barking. She was especially vocal when it came to asking for cheese or water. Or when she wanted to get on my bed for a nap. I referred to her barking as "yelling." She liked to yell at me. All. The. Time. :) 

• She loved, loved, loved sitting in the sun and letting the wind blow through her fur. She also liked sitting in front of fans if she was hot.

• She loved naps on our bed, especially when I exercised. It was an especially good nap if the sun was shining...she loved to lounge in the sun's rays either on the floor (while on top of a blanket) or on our bed.

• Her favorite time of day was when I finally sat down on the couch so she could curl up in my lap (this spot became known as "our spot") and put her head in the crook of my elbow - but she also loved bedtime. She loved sleeping in Ben's crevasse at night - basically, she'd curl her little body into his armpit and put her head on his shoulder. 

• Reagan was super intrigued by smells and she LOVED peeing where other dogs had peed. 

• She's been known to poop, pee, and vomit in bed. She was such a classy dog!

• She loved to scratch her eyes/eye boogers on our pillows. She's also been known to lick a pillow or two.

• Favorite foods: cheese! Especially "fiesta blend." When barking for cheese, her front feet would bounce off the ground. She loved her cheese. She also loved boiled chicken! And puppy food (thank you, Gracie). She also loved for her water to be "hand-fed" to her from the faucet in our bathroom (she was picky about faucets). 

• She was so very, very loyal. From day one. We often joke that she has never gotten over the kids being born. :)

• Belly scratches from Ben were a favorite. He also loved to flip her ears back so they were exposed. We joked that she could probably hear better that way anyway. :) Ben would also rub her ears and then whisper in them - they had their own way of communicating. :)

• Often when I held her, I held her "cheek to cheek" - her cheek nestled against my cheek. I always kissed her face when I picked her up.

• She had horrible breath and rotten teeth. She lost two teeth while "playing" with Gracie recently!

• She slept with us for 16 years. When we first got her, we only allowed her to sleep with us on weekends (ha!) but that failed Memorial Day Weekend of 2005. She's been in our bed ever since. She hated being away from us...as a baby, she would squeeze past the baby gate in the bathroom and poop and pee all the way to our bedroom!

• We have a funny memory of her having destroyed our bathroom once. She unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper and pooped and peed all over the floor. This was when she was still an itty bitty puppy. It took a full year to properly potty-train her. 

• She used to love to chase tiny tennis balls and cuz toys. She was FAST - so fast that I had trouble catching her sometimes. She would make me late for things! 

• She lived in 4 houses with us!

• Walker had a million names for her and held her on a high pedestal. His favorite - the one that we all adopted - was Tinny. (Or Tin-eh.) He told us all the time that "Tinny rules" and "Tinny is the ruler." He even taught his little cousin Tom to say that "Tinny Rules." Reagan even gave Walker pep talks before baseball games. Because she knows all things. She was the smartest. 

• She loved to be held, and always turned to put her head on my shoulder.

• She wanted to be part of conversations; she liked being eye-to-eye with people. 

• She snarled at the kids and it always made us giggle. She wasn't very threatening and we're pretty sure her teeth haven't connected on anything solid (other than dog food) in years...

• She always wanted to protect us...her back was always to me, facing whatever entrance was open.

• She loved to antagonize the rabbit. I would often pick her up, after we'd all had enough of her barking and assure her that she was the queen and she was still in charge. I know that even though she couldn't hear me, she understood what I was saying.

• She didn't love other dogs. She barked at anyone who ever entered the house. :) When she encountered a larger dog, she would bark and bully them until they retreated. The only dog she ever really liked was Rusty, our neighbors' (former) dog in Texas.

• She was totally deaf and mostly blind by the end...and she weighed around 7 pounds. :) 

• She would often wake up from naps with half her face fur smooshed - earning her the nickname "Smuss" or "Smussy" or "Smuss-Face."

• A complete list of nicknames: Reagan W. Schuster Hagan Harris, Princess (or "Pwincess" as Lainey used to call her that when she was a toddler), Tinny/Tin-eh, The Ruler, Smuss, Smuss-Face, Smussy, Reagan Dog, Reaggy Doggy, Poo-Doh, Triangle Face, Old Man with a Beard (after a particularly interesting haircut), Fluff Head, Tiny Dog, Tiny, Tin, Mesusa Fluff, Mesuse, Mrs. Fluff, Rotten Dog, Rakuten, Tirny, Tirny Tirnation (Walker made up all the names displayed in italics!)

• Walker said that if she had a restaurant, it would be named "Tunny Macaroni." He also referred to her as his "Bost Frond Syrumpalump" - who knows. Basically, they were best friends (one-sided, mind you). That turned into "bost fronds" and then the "Syrumpalump" came from "syrup." He is forever making up words and sayings. A couple of years ago, he added "-ita" or "-itta" onto our names...like "Mom-itta" and "Dad-itta." Our family group chat name is "Itta Family." At some point, he started calling Ben "Pants" - or "Ponts" or "Pents" - that has stuck, too. I think that actually came from The Lego Movie quote "Honey, where are my pants?" Walker - while this is about Reagan, don't ever forget how funny you are. :) 

• Walker frequently reminded us to never "forget about her" - but he said it like it was one word, like "dontforgetabouther." We always assured him that we wouldn't. :) He also combined the words "whatabouther" when people asked about her or when we talked about her... he would say, "Tinny? Whatabouther? We can't forgetabouther!"

• Back when she still had her hearing, she responded to “Bye-Bye” and "Where's Dad?" and "Night-Night"  and "cheese" and then, after she lost her hearing, she understood that my wave meant "Bye-Bye" and would settle down for a nap after I left.

• I loved seeing her face in the window of our front door...the spot where she would wait for me if she knew I had walked outside for whatever reason.

• She didn't love visiting Ben at hospital. Right after he was admitted, she waited for him at bedtime for two solid weeks. She would look at the bedroom door, just hoping he would enter.

• My phone was a great "babysitter" - she knew that if I put her somewhere temporarily, like my bed or the couch, and left my phone there as a "babysitter" - she knew I was coming back. She knew I didn't leave my phone in one place for very long. :) Ha!

• She loved to sleep in, but after she awakened, she loved a good morning walk around the backyard. She would spend 20-30 minutes outside, exploring smells and wondering if the dogs next door were awake. She was notorious for barking to awaken neighbor dogs and then going inside...leaving them barking and confused. She couldn't hear them, so she had no idea that they barked back at her. 

• I still hear her snores and sighs at night - they were so sweet. I have to often remind myself that she's not here anymore. 

• If in a group of people, she would sniff everyone's legs to find mine. She sniffed me out once at my in-law's house when we had a lot of family members present. She went down the line of legs until she found me. She could also smell me when I entered a room; she would oftentimes awaken from a nap because she could sense that I had entered a room.

• She always searched for me, no matter whose arms she was in. :)

• She was never afraid to go to the bathroom in the rain. She was never afraid of thunder. 

• Reagan had one good leg. The rest were injured or had been operated on (one had a luxating patella, another had endured surgery for a luxating patella, and another had the titanium rod holding it in place from when she was attacked by the big dog). When she peed, she always lifted her back right leg a bit...it was cute. I also think her back right foot was a "flipper foot" - permanently turned out, like a flipper. This is probably due to the luxating patella.

• I loved stroking her back legs when I was holding her. And smelling and squishing the pads of her tiny front paws. I also loved the smell of her little eye boogers. (It’s an acquired smell. But it was a sweet one.) When her teeth fell out I loved to pick off the decay. How disgusting is that. The decay is what made her breath smell bad... her teeth were always a lesson from my kids as to why they should brush their teeth.

• She loved to escape through open doors. I have no idea where she thought she was going. But she wanted out! Wanted to see that big world. I always tried to tell her that her life with us was better than what was out there! :)

• Back in her day, she had two boyfriends - a giant Carebear and a stuffed Rottweiler

• She did the best stretches on her belly on carpet - we would always say  “stweeeeetttsss” and she would army crawl around on the ground with her front legs - back legs stretched out, belly flat on the ground. It was funny.

We hope we made all your dog dreams come true, Reagan. I will miss you always. I hope you are feeling safe and comforted over that “rainbow bridge” and have found an adult to cuddle you and snuggle you. That is my wish. We love you!

"i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it...” - EE Cummings