This will most definitely be one of the hardest posts I will ever have to make. This past week, one of my best friends passed away. My sweet, little boy Marty made his trip to Heaven.
It’s hard to imagine that he’s actually gone and it’s tough to think that there is now a period of my life where he won’t physically be here. I won’t be able to go home to him on weekends and be greeted by his cheerful bark and wagging tail. I won’t be able to take him on walks anymore or play with his little stuffed dragon or other toys anymore. It honestly feels like I’ve lost a brother. It feels like a little bit of me is gone. This is hard…
I remember the day we went and picked up our sweet little angel. It was October 26, 2009, six days after my tenth birthday. I remember telling my teacher at the time that I would be missing school on Friday to go pick up my brand new puppy. She was jealous. We left and stayed in Colorado Springs that night and I remember looking out the window of the hotel thinking, “We’re coming Marty. I can’t wait to meet you.”
When we arrived at Sunset Dachshunds, the place we picked him up from, he was wearing the cutest little black and orange bow to celebrate Halloween coming up and his little tail was wagging about a million miles an hour. He cried a bit on the way with us to our grandpa’s house, but I think he knew that he had just become a member of a family that would love him endlessly.
During his first few months at home with us, I remember crying while I was on my way to school because it was snowing so much and we didn’t get a snow day. I just wanted to spend the day with my new puppy. We got to school and all of the teachers were standing outside the building as the snow blew around and they told us, “Go home. No school today!” My sister and I were thrilled. When we came home to him, he was attempting to crawl over the barricade we had set up for him. He was so dang cute. We spent that wonderful snow day with our sweet little boy and I will always cherish the pictures my family took that day.
He was such a smart pup. He could say “I love you, Inna” to my mom. He could sit, sit pretty, shake, and even though he was a bit crazy on walks, he was always such a well-behaved dog. He was great with people, sometimes not so much with dogs, but he was still a good boy and would listen to us when we told him to stop doing whatever he was doing.
And when we got Boo, I remember how excited Mar was to be a big brother. He was always clearly an alpha, but he became such a leader and role model to Boo, once Boo joined the Horvath family. Any time Boo barked too much, Mar was there to snap at him and put Boo back in line. Any time Boo was a bit too far ahead of Marty during walks, Marty would bark at Boo to get to his side or stay behind him. Anytime Boo would even just want to play, Marty would always challenge him. Marty was always so good to Boo and such a wonderful companion to him. I can’t imagine how Boo is handling this. Or does he really even understand? From what I’ve been told, on Marty’s last day on Earth, Boo spent a lot of time licking him and sticking to his side. I feel like dogs have a way of knowing these things. I just want to be there as much as I can for Boo now.
Despite all of the emergency visits to the vet, Marty was still a pleasure to have around. There was one time where he must have eaten a chicken strip or something, and he managed to get a HUGE abscess in his mouth. At the ER, they told us Mar had cancer, but we knew that wasn’t the case. The abscess popped and he ended up being just fine. Another time, he had an allergic reaction to a rabies shot and we made another trip to the ER for him. And then when we found out he had that stupid bladder cancer, every trip to the vet was a journey, but the time spent with him was not wasted and not under appreciated.
I wish that I had been there for him with his last breaths but maybe it’s for the better that I was at school when Marty moved on. I told him that I would see him in two weeks after first leaving for school and it really sucks that I wasn’t there for him, but I’m happy to know that he’s in a better place and that the pain and suffering is over.
I’m thankful to my parents for not listening to the vets, saying that Marty only had six months to live. He lived an entire freaking year after the vets discovered the cancerous cells in his bladder, and he lived a good year. He got to be with family until the end.
So Marty, thank you for all the tail wags and kisses and play time and snuggles. Thank you for all the walks and car rides. Thank you for being a little ray of sunshine even when days were rough. You may have hated bath time but you were always the cutest little thing when you acted all grumpy under your blankets, even though I wasn’t touching you. Thank you for blessing my life with your wonderful existence and all of the memories. You will forever be a part of our little core four and be my best friend, my bubba, my little prince, and now my angel. I love you endlessly, Marty. ?
