Wills...

In 1996 a neighbor's dog had a litter of pure bred cocker spaniels. Nicole and I visited and fell in love with this cute little guy...convinced Rich that we needed a dog...and so we brought him home and surprised Chelsea and Katelyn.  Nicole named him Prince William Theodore (I think the previous owners had named him Teddy, but we didn't like that name).  Before too long he was simply... Wills.

Through the years Wills was loyal, lovable, and playful! He enjoyed the game of "fetch and keep" as seen here in this picture of him with a Woody doll from Toy Story.

Wills was with us through some big moments in our family life...both Nicole and Chelsea went off to college, we moved, Nicole got married, and Claire arrived.  We also added two other pets... Belle our sweet cat (they ignored each other) and Gabby our feisty little Yorkie.  Gabby loved the idea of a big playmate and felt the need to look after Wills and tell him what to do...a very typical male/female relationship, accept that he didn't react in the normal way and just ignore her...he pretty much ran from her.

My favorite memory of Wills is that of him going to get the newspaper with Rich at 5:00 am every morning.  He loved doing that and didn't understand weekend hours.  When Rich decided that he needed to retrain Wills for the weekend...it was hard work.  Wills would bark and scratch on the laundry room door and eventually would go out through the doggie door and come around to our bedroom door and scratch and bark in hopes of waking Rich up! Eventually he grew too tired to get up that early and the morning routine was replaced with the evening walk to the mailbox.

The past few years were hard on our guy.  He was diagnosed with an auto immune disease that almost took him two years ago.  Our vet saved him with a blood transfusion and he then began some intensive drug therapy (the drugs helped his symptoms but the side effects were not good).  To say that he was a trooper to the end is an understatement.  He always met us with a wagging tail and he made the trek to the end of the driveway with his beloved master every day. 

I like to think that he is enjoying a new life with a healthy body and that he can see and hear, is romping through a neighborhood making friends and eating cheeseburgers with construction workers, and yes, he can handle the little Gabby dogs nipping at his heels!