Sweet Hula
Around 10:30am on Saturday, January 15th, Hula went to the great steak hoagie in the sky. Our sweet girl was doing really well until pneumonia set in early Saturday morning. Just the day before she was eating beef flavored baby food from a syringe. 
When I went back to see her on Saturday morning, I said to the vet, "she looks really tired. I hope she can keep this up". I sat with her for awhile, petted her, and told her how much we loved her and how proud we were of her. At about 10am, she kept lifting her head and looking over at me. I smiled at her, told her to rest. A few minutes later, she started bleeding from the nose and her heart stopped. I think she was looking at me to say goodbye.
They were able to restart her heart once, but it gave out only a few minutes later. She was too tired; she was done. Matt was able to come out with Levi, and we held her and said goodbye to her as a family.
The past few weeks have been pretty sad around here, but we are picking up the pieces and moving on. I think what makes it so difficult what the surprise of it all: it's not like Hula had cancer or was 14 years old. She was only 5, and happy and healthy as can be. Obviously, the first few days were the roughest. And just when I think I'm making headway on the grief, I find something of hers: her harness, old dog treats, a tuft of hair, a small duck hidden under a piece of furniture. Just last week I had to go pick up her remains from the hospital; it was so sad. We had her cremated with her favorite toy, Duckers, and now they're both in a small box on our dresser. We've removed almost all of Hula's stuff from our house- some to be donated, some to be thrown away, and some to be placed in a box. One of the most cathartic things we've done is gone through all of our old blog posts labeled "Hula". We will likely be posting lots of videos, photos, and stories of Hula here simply so we have a record of them. So don't be surprised to see random stuff popping up about Hula in the next few months.
One of the things we've always talked about it how fun it's going to be having Hula around while our kids are little, how much they're going to love her, and how much Hula is going to love them. In the past 2 months Levi had really taken a shine to Hula- reaching for her and smiling whenever she came close. Even as we said goodbye to her, he was grabbing her and talking to her. It was super sweet to see how Levi knew her and loved her.
Hula was the most amazing dog we've ever known. We miss her to pieces. And we are beyond thankful that we got to spend her life with her.
