In Memoriam

Crystal

"The Alpha Queen"

My husband and I adopted both of our Westies through the Westie Rescue of North Texas and I wanted to share Crystal's story with everyone so that they know how their lives can be enriched by providing a warm and loving home to these wonderful dogs.

Crystal and Cujo were 5 years old when the family they were living with decided to split up. Neither side wanted to keep the dogs after the divorce and fortunately they called WRNT to see if someone could adopt. I remember the day that we went to their home to meet Crystal and Cujo and I will never forget the look on my husband's face as both those dogs came running around the corner and jumped up on both of us to lick our faces. We had talked about only being able to adopt 1 dog but after seeing both we decided that we just had to have both these wonderful dogs.

Crystal happily lived with us for 6 years until she got sick in February of 2006. We tried everything to save her and she even spent a week in the animal hospital undergoing numerous tests to try and figure out what was wrong. They could not pinpoint the problem and she became very anemic and could not keep down food and then even water. She passed away at home on March 7, 2006 and we miss her terribly.

Crystal was our "alpha" dog and she ran the household like the queen that she was - her food was eaten first, her toys were kept in her corner and she slept on the big dog pillow right in the middle so Cujo had to find another spot. She was a beautiful Westie with big brown eyes and the softest, most beautiful coat of fur. She was always very healthy and hardly ever sick until the end. She loved to ride in the car and the backseat was her domain. She would run from side to side to see if she was missing anything important. One of her favorite outings was to go to Sonic Drive In for a vanilla ice cream dish or those dog cookies that they have in little tiny plastic bags. Last year, she even made a fall foliage road trip up to Oklahoma and had a wonderful time running through parks and seeing all the different scenery.

She brought so much joy to our lives as she was very loving and playful. She would do the "Crystal Crawl", as we called it, where she would pull herself across the carpet on her belly to get your attention. She also loved to play what we called "Where's Mike" as my husband would hide under the covers of the bed and she would search frantically for him and then try to dig a hole to get through the blankets and sheets to uncover him.

Thank you WRNT for all of the wonderful work that you do and for saving so many lives. I urge everyone to consider adoption, you will not be disappointed.