Goodbye to our Beloved Dog

Tiki was part of our family for nearly 10 years: from June 11, 2013 until the day she unexpectedly passed away on December 7, 2023. 

Tiki joined our family in June of 2013. We got her just 2 days after our first dog, who'd we had for only a mere 8 months, bit Kanyon's face and had to be put down. The boys were so sad to lose our first dog and wanted another one, but I didn't want to train another puppy again. Josh felt inspired to go to the animal shelter to find a new dog, and there we found a pet for our family that was truly a match made in heaven. Tiki was a corgi/border collie mix that fit all our criteria (and then some!): she was medium-sized, family-friendly, and was NOT a biter. They'd only had her for one week. She was only one year old and had already been bred because her previous owner was a breeder (however, she was fixed while at the shelter). She had arrived with a puppy but they'd sent her puppy to Boise that very morning to a different shelter, which was good timing for us to show up when we did, because she was so sad and lonely. I think her life up to that point had been traumatic because she hated loud noises, always liked to hide under things, didn't like to "play", laid around most of the time, and almost never barked. However, she was the perfect dog for our growing boys. She helped the boys heal from the terrible incident with our previous dog, and I think our boys helped heal her heart from the loss of having her puppies taken from her. 

She loved the boys: watching them, hanging out by them, and being petted by them. She particularly enjoyed just following them around to their various activities close to home, like when they went running, bike riding, motorcycling, sledding, and when they worked around the ranch changing irrigation pipe or hauling hay bales. The only times we heard her bark, which was rare, were when the boys first started the motorcycles and she would bark at the engine or when they were running or riding bikes on the road and she would bark at the vehicles passing by them. She did her best at being a guard dog for them!  

On one of Ammon's last trips to Salmon,
she jumped in his car when he was
leaving, and didn't want to get out!

Although she loved all the boys, she seemed to favor Micah and Josh the most. She especially loved when Josh would scratch her belly. She was a sweet animal, and was so friendly to other people, too: she never jumped up on others, very rarely growled, and got along with anybody who was willing to pet her! One of my favorite things about her was that she always happily greeted us when we arrived home from school or work. She was a pretty subdued dog, but she would get especially excited to see us after we'd been gone on a longer trip or vacation! 

Watching at the window,
waiting for family members to return. 

She often put her head by people's lap, which
was her way of saying she wanted attention.

When Josh would sit down, she would come by his
feet & roll over to her back so he would pet her belly.

She didn't get to go on trips with us very often, because we discovered that she had a really hard time getting along with other dogs. There were very few dogs she tolerated, but she really disliked male dogs and alpha females, and would become shockingly fierce while around them. We think it had something to do with the time she spent as a young dog at the breeder's place. She did go camping with us a few times, which she really liked, and one of her favorite excursions was the annual Christmas tree hunt. 

Although she struggled getting along with other dogs, she had a fantastic relationship with our cat, Torch. We got Torch soon after Tiki joined our family. At that time, Torch was a kitten, and Tiki seemed to adopt him as her own "pup". When he was little, she would carry him around by latching onto the nape of his neck. It was SO cute, and I wish I had a photo of it! As the cat grew, their relationship grew, and for a while, the cat seemed to be Tiki's teacher rather than her pup. The cat would bring a dying mouse or bird to Tiki, and Tiki would bat at it to entertain the cat. Tiki started attempting to cover up her poop in the yard by using her hind legs to kick at the grass and dirt around it after she finished the job, which she didn't do when she first joined our family. In the beginning, both animals were outdoor pets. However, over time, they came in the house more and more and both became indoor pets. Eventually we got a doggy door so they could freely come and go. They were companions and friends. They enjoyed napping by each other, and although the cat showed a distaste occasionally for the dog's company, he's really missed her since she's been gone and has taken over her napping spots in our bedrooms which he never did while she was here. 

Tiki would undergo an annual transformation with her hair. She resembled a short bear in the winter with her thick winter coat and a skinny fox in the summer after her annual haircut. The first couple years after she had her haircut, the cat didn't seem to recognize her or like her or want to be around her for a few days because she looked different and smelled different (from the soaps and shampoos). I felt bad she got snubbed by her companion for getting her hair trimmed! The last few times she had her hair cut, we noticed a gray patch of hair on her back that was getting larger and larger, which was evidence of her aging. 

Tiki with her thick winter hair

Tiki after her summer haircut

On Sunday, December 4, Josh and I returned home from an out-of-town weekend trip to watch Kanyon wrestle in American Falls. That night, we noticed she was walking rather slowly. As she walked across the kitchen and family room, we listened to the sound of her nails slowly tinkling across the hard floors, and it seemed to take her forever to get from the dining room to the carpeted hall by the boys' bedrooms. We didn't really think anything of it at the time; we just thought she was tired. On Monday night, when Josh and I were outside in the hot tub, we watched her go through the doggy door to get inside, and she was struggling to get her hind legs up and through the door, which we thought was strange. On Tuesday morning, she was laying on the floor just outside our bedroom door, which wasn't uncommon. But when I got home from work on Tuesday evening, she was still in the same spot. She hadn't eaten or drank anything all day. When Josh got home, I told him something was wrong with Tiki. We watched her for a few minutes, and he noticed that her stomach was expanding and contracting in an unusual way, but it didn't seem to affect her breathing. We didn't know what to do: we knew she wasn't well, but the vet's offices were closed for the day, so we decided to wait until the following morning to take her to the vet. About an hour later, she got up and went outside and laid in the snow. She did that periodically in the winter, but this time, she stayed outside in the snow all night even though it was below ten degrees. I figured she must have felt hot and needed to cool down. I checked on her a couple of times throughout the night, fearing that I would find her dead. On Wednesday morning, she was still outside and awake. She was shivering, but recognized me as I approached her. I sat with her for several minutes, petting and soothing her before I had to leave for work. 

Josh had a meeting first thing that morning, but afterwards, he came home to take her to town. By that time, she had moved herself back inside and there was evidence of her sickness on the floor. He cleaned up the messes, spent some time petting and soothing her, and then carried her to the car and drove her to the vet. I had called our vet that morning to make an appointment, but unfortunately it was her day off, so he took Tiki to the other vet in town. The other vet was late coming in to work, and he waited with Tiki for an hour at that office. When the vet arrived, they took Tiki's temperature. It was 104 degrees (which explains why she slept outside in the snow). They tested her blood and put her on an IV and kept her for observation all day. Josh went back to work after that. On my home from work, I stopped at the vet's clinic to see Tiki. They brought her to a small room. She didn't appear to be any better. I sat on the floor next to her, crying and constantly petting her. I told her what a good dog she'd been to the boys and how much we'd loved having her in our family. It broke my heart to see her this way. She only lifted her head once while I was there, and her eyes were dark and her demeanor didn't look like Tiki's. I'm grateful for the time I had alone with her. 

I told the vet that I wanted to take her home and have her be put down so that she wouldn't die in this strange place in the middle of the night, but the doctor said there were some signs of improvement, and that Tiki was trying to fight off whatever was ailing her. The vet and her aide thought she should be given more time, so I reluctantly left her there in their care. On Thursday morning, she'd become more alert and they thought her condition was improving. But shockingly, after that, she had two seizures and passed away around noon. The vet said there wasn't signs of infection in her blood, but her fever and the strange-looking bowel movements suggested something wasn't right. We don't know what happened to cause her to go downhill so quickly the last few days of her life. Josh brought her home that evening and buried her in a beloved spot on our property. He used the backhoe to get beneath the snow and rocks to bury her beneath a grove of trees. He hung her collar and leash on a tree branch above her burial ground to mark the spot. She's buried in a peaceful place. 

I knew she was aging, but I always thought she would pass away after all the boys were grown and gone; I didn't expect her to leave us so soon. Our home has been too quiet in her absence. I miss her greeting us when we come home. I miss her laying under the table when we eat. I miss her being at our feet when we gather to watch T.V. or play games together. It's been strange to not hear her feet trek across the floor, to not see her running to meet us, to not know what to do with our leftover bones after meals. She was a good dog for our family and we loved her so much.