She was the best dog. Ever.

Even at the very end of congestive heart failure, her belly filling up with fluid, her muscles shrunken around her bones, Hanna walked with us. She walked with pride, with joy, with determination. She labored to breathe in the last days, but that didn’t stop her from taking that one last long walk with us today. And she set the pace, walking alongside her brother like so many other times, so happy to be experiencing what we referred to as “out world” – which was so much more exotic and exciting than “in world” or even “back world,” for that matter.

We scheduled the home goodbye visit with a vet twice last week and canceled both because I wasn’t quite ready to face the inevitable. She just wouldn’t act like a dog that had so little left. She still greeted me with enthusiasm and gobbled up the treats we offered her. But it wasn’t like the old days, when we could walk for miles or even run with her. She squeezed every ounce of life out of that 13-year-old body, and she never complained – not once.

When she and her brother were young, before my two younger kids came along, we frequented the Muirwood dog park in Pleasanton, the beach and her favorite, the gargantuan bayside dog park on Point Isabel in Richmond. We’d take the dogs to local parks and schools and let them off leash, knowing they would always come back to a sharp whistle or a loud “Come!” Her ears would perk up at the sight of a squirrel scurrying up a neighborhood tree and she let out a bizarre sound that could best be described as a “gurgle-scream” when crossing other dogs’ paths during our walks.

From the time we brought my daughter home from the hospital six years ago, she was “Erin’s dog," sleeping by her bed, letting Erin dress her in hats and necklaces and even paint her toenails. My favorite picture of the two of them is Erin and Hanna lying side by side on the floor next to our sliding glass door in a wide sliver of sunlight.

Hanna was the smart one – once tricking her brother into giving up his bone by pretending to go outside, stepping onto the porch with him close behind and then making a quick move back into the house and a b-line to his bone. She enjoyed two bones that night. She earned them with her cunning.

She could be a vindictive little thing when she was angry. One summer day, her brother made it first to the tennis ball they were chasing. When she captured it on the next throw, she brought it close to him, looked him square in the eye, squatted over it and, shall we say, “ruined it” for the rest of the game?

There was never a more loyal, brave or cool dog or one so stubborn that her spirit drove her far beyond the limits of her aging and ailing body.

I’ll always remember her running beside me, so happy to be at my side whenever I took the time to ask her to come with me. The wind was in her face and there was a spring in her step and an adoration I could never do enough to deserve.

We said goodbye to her last week. As I write this, I remember that when I first started my training business, I used to give my clients hand-written 3x5 cards with inspirational quotes. One day, a client who was a dear young woman and an ardent dog lover opened our session with this:

"Today I have a quote for YOU!”

Here it is:

“May we each strive to be the person our dog thinks that we are.”

Goodbye, sweet girl. You were the best. The best ever.