She's gone. After a very long and difficult night, I took Soya to the vet this morning. She was in a lot of pain overnight and ended up pretty much unresponsive and suffering from a lot of blood loss.
Royaltons Saucey Soya was born July 29, 1992. Her sire was Royaltons King Korky, Dam Royaltons Heide May. She came from the Chet and & Gail Vettel kennel.
Soya's first family was Carole K. of Blaine, MN. She was trained to be a running companion for Carole, but proved to be Carole's lifesaver during an abusive marriage and traumatic divorce. Carole had a young baby during this, and Soya willingly withstood all the baby's pulling and yanking on her body. Carole told me there were many days when she relied on Soya to keep her sane.
In December of 1998, Soya became a member of our family. Taylor was 4 years old and Nate was 8. Soya came to us in a sort of miraculous way. Carole was getting remarried and the gentleman she was marrying had two aged golden retrievers that belonged to his son. The three dogs simply were not going to do well together in the new household. So she posted a notice on her veterinarian's bulletin board. Somehow, that notice went from her vet's board in one suburb, to my sister's vet's board several suburbs away. My sister saw the notice and mentioned it to me.
We called Carole on a Saturday and agreed to go to her house the next day after church to meet Soya. When we got there, it was immediately apparent that she belonged to us. Carole invited us to take her for a few days on trial. We loaded her in the van and she never went back. Carole did come to visit her a couple weeks later, just to see how she was situated.
Soya walked right into our household and made it her home. And she bonded particularly with Taylor and me. Of course, as most dogs do, she saw me as the Alpha. She knew I would care for her and do what needed to be done for her. She would walk around with me all day and night, every step of the way. Just waiting to see if there was anything I might need her to do, I suppose. But Taylor became her "pet". He would sit next to her and play or talk to her, and she would just lay there and listen or sleep. I never worried about such a small boy walking such a powerful dog, either. She could yank me into a snowdrift but there was always slack in the leash when the boys walked her. Later on, whenever Taylor was home alone, he said Soya would come to whatever room he was in and be there beside him.
While she had this great affection for Taylor, she also had a natural affinity for 3 specific men. Our neighbor Jesse, my Dad, and my Brother Ted. I don't know if it's because they are all big men, over 6 ft tall or what, but they were the only men that she would actually climb right onto and sit on. Maybe she was thinking..."Aha! A lap my size!" But really, she liked everyone. And she was polite about it. She rarely jumped up on people. She would just slobber their knees. Then she'd wrap around into that Boxer "kidney bean" and wipe the slobber off onto her coat!
My Mom used to say that you only get one really good dog in your lifetime. I suspect now she would amend that, since their dog Mickey is such a great companion. Our family's first really great dog was Sugar, a toy poodle we had most of my growing up years. Soya definitely deserves to be on that list of truly great companions. We'll certainly miss her a lot. And I'll have to learn to walk in a straight line again. I've had this 60 lb dog walking inches in front of me, trying to anticipate my every step, for the last 5 1/2 years!
2:11:45 PM 
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