We got Lulu about ten years ago. Beth had discovered that she was highly allergic to Lulu and no one else wanted to adopt her. (Lulu, not Beth). We took Lulu in. Initially, the plan was to adopt her out but it soon became obvious that Lulu wasn’t going anywhere.

Lulu was a compact 40 pound dog with short black fur. She looked like a cross between a black lab and a pit bull. Our vet thought that she was a shar pei and something else.

When we got Lulu, we already had two other dogs, Dakota and Boomer. They were full size golden retrievers and each one weighed 80ish pounds. Lulu could almost walk under either one of them. Because of this, we thought of her as a little dog but most folks thought that she was a regular sized dog.

Dakota and Lulu never became close. It was like they never noticed each other. Conversely, Boomer and Lulu were soon good buddies. They’d constantly play with each other.

One of Lulu’s favorite activities with Boomer was to grab one of Boomer’s ears with her teeth and Boomer would walk around the house with Lulu hanging from him. Boomer never complained about this but he did give any humans who saw this a long-suffering look.

When Cooper came on the scene, Lulu tried this exercise on him. Cooper didn’t approve and yelped and carried on until she let go.

Lulu wasn’t really a big fan of other people. She liked to hang out with Pam, Corwin, and me but was pretty fickle about anyone else. She’d growl and bark and look really evil at most other people.

She wasn’t much better with other dogs and would bark and growl at most of them. I noticed that if the other dog was much bigger, then she’d do her barking and growling from behind me. If the dog had come after us, I’m pretty sure that I’d pick up Lulu and use her as a shield but I never told her that.

During the last year or two, Lulu developed arthritis and wasn’t able to walk that far. It got so that I’d only take her out for a couple hundred yards. This would take 20-30 minutes because she’d stop to sniff every blade of grass on the way.

I was getting no aerobic exercise from these walks, so I tried to take walks by myself so that I could go at a faster clip. As soon as I started preparing for the walk, Lulu would be by my side, smiling and panting at the thought of me taking her out again. After a while, I started sneaking out on Lulu to get in my own walks. Yes, I know how stupid this sounds.

A few months ago, Lulu developed a lump where her armpit would be if her foreleg was an arm. The vet cut it out but it grew back and had spread to her rib cage. Another lump started on one of her hind legs.

We decided to end it before it became miserable for her.

Little Lu Lu,
Was no more than eleven…

…Plus two.