When I was seven years old, I wanted a puppy more than anything. My parents said that if I did the research and found a dog that would fit certain requirements (good with kids and other animals, short haired so that ticks and poison oak wouldn't be an issue, medium sized, etc) I could have one. I spent months in front of the computer and finally found the perfect breed: the sloughi. I presented my parents with my findings. They were surprised: I had stopped talking about dogs a while ago, and they thought I had forgotten about getting a puppy. In fact, I had quietly launched myself into elaborate research. I guess they realized that they couldn't turn back on their promise after I'd done so much work, and so, a couple weeks before my eighth birthday, Bahja came into our lives.
That first night, my mom lined the floor of my room with puppy pads (to prevent any stains from accidents on the carpet) and brought Bahja's bed into my room. After I turned out the light, Bahja started to whine, probably missing her mother and siblings. I pulled her up into my bed, and for nine years after that she slept curled under the covers with me. When she got older (about eight or nine) she didn't like to jump up to the bed anymore, so she slept on her own bed on the floor in my room. At night, she would wait by the stairs for me, and when I walked up to my room for bed she would follow.
Bahja and Dill on the New Year's hike
She was a constant companion to our family; she ate breakfast and dinner when we ate (and complained loudly if she wasn't happy with her food), ran on the trails and beaches with us, hiked with our family, played with me and my brother (although fetch was never her strong suit, she always enjoyed a good wrestle), and was a constant character in our house. We complained about her, as family members do; "she's such a princess, why can't she just move her own bed, why does she bark all the time, why won't she eat her food, ugh she peed in the house again..." but really we all loved her to bits.
This past year, she hadn't been doing well. She was on an on-again-off again hunger strike, and lost a lot of weight. Her kidneys were slowly failing (they were 'old', the vet told us, after we got an MRI done). When I left home for Scotland in September, she was skinny, but not too skinny. When I got back in December, she was a walking skeleton. Literally. I could see every rib from ten feet away, and her spine looked like a dragon's scales. She came with us on our annual New Year's run to celebrate 2015, and that was her last outing with our family. A week after I got back to Edinburgh last month, my mom messaged me that Bahja had died.
It still doesn't feel real to me that she's gone; she's been with me for 11 years, and I'm not home to notice her absence on the living room floor, in my room at night, on walks. But she is gone, and I think the reality of that will hit me when I go home for the summer. I'm happy for her, because she was suffering and unhappy and old, but that doesn't make her passing easier for me. I miss her. Goodbye, puppis. Maybe we'll meet again someday.