Best dog ever.

Eight days after the fact and it's still a little hard for me to write this without crying.  Those of you who have loved and lost a pet understand this.  Even though Waffle wasn't technically my dog (Dad and Adrienne having picked him out nearly 15 years ago and after I had moved from Waterview), he still belonged to all of us.  The Australian Shepard who was rarely clean, who liked to go for rides, (whether to the gas station down the road or to Lowe's to pick up a Christmas tree), who was gentle with every puppy, kitten, colt, and calf fortunate enough to call Turner Farm "home," who greeted us all when we pulled up the driveway (no matter if we had been gone ten minutes or ten years) was family.  He followed Dad everywhere on the farm, even if he had no intentions of herding anything:). He wanted to ride in the gator every time Mom started it, even if Tucker and Gabby joined in and inevitably jumped on his head.  Four days before he died, he rode to town with me and visited with the ladies at the library and may or may have gotten a biscuit at the Kwik Stop.  He loved Isabella and let her bear hug him anytime she wanted. After two accidents this summer, he fought back from near paralysis to give us seven more happy months with him (and in all honesty, if it meant we could have seven more of him feeling healthy and happy, I would spend night after night sleeping in a tent beside him).

Waffle was a fixture on Turner Farm and his devotion to us was matched by our devotion to him.  We buried him by Cotton, our beloved horse, and in the barn lot that has come to mean so much more to the Turner ladies in the past two years. On that land now rests three guys who pulled through more than they probably should have been able to and who loved this farm, and the family on it, with their whole hearts.