June 1st would have been our dear, sweet, goofy Miles’s 15th birthday. He crossed the rainbow bridge on August 31, 2020 after a valiant battle with heart disease. It has taken us a long time to process his passing which explains the delay in writing this memorial.
We adopted Miles from A Forever Home on August 4, 2006 when he was only 8 weeks old. He was the smallest of the “Millie” litter (we decided to keep the name from his foster family) and looked microscopic next to his siblings. I still remember my parents skeptically asking me, “Are you sure that’s the one you want?” But as soon as I picked him up, I knew he was destined to be a member of our family.
Miles brought life to our household amid difficult times. Even if we had nothing to say to each other, we could talk about him for hours. The sounds of his paws click-clacking on the hardwood floors, his disproportionately booming bark from a 20-pound body, and the nonsensical conversations between him and us echoed throughout our house all day long (except during nap time, of course!)
From day one, we could tell that Miles was highly intelligent, but also extremely stubborn. This trait showed the most when we received his congestive heart failure diagnosis. The cardiologist prognosed that he had about six months left but our headstrong boy made it through a full one and a half years. Even the day before we put him to sleep he was galloping around refusing to give up the croissant he snatched from our grocery bag.
The past nine months have been incredibly tough. The house seems empty now without Miles’s “tippy-taps” or “kurkures” (the sound of him digging furiously on our furniture), especially during the pandemic. He truly was my best friend and companion who grew up and stayed by my side from coast-to-coast. We will be forever grateful to Miles for the 14 years he spent on Earth with us and will cherish every single memory he gifted to our family. Thank you, Miles, especially for giving me a reason to get out of bed each morning.