Today we lost our precious Bailey this morning very unexpectedly. She fought with Addison's Disease for just over 7 years but was feisty and tried to keep up with our other babies every day. Nate and I brought Bailey into our lives in June 2002 when we had moved onto Fort Riley post housing. Kresta and Ryan, neighbors, had a Bassett and we thought they were such great dogs. It wasn't a week after we moved on post, we had ourselves a baby basset hound named Bailey.

When Nate deployed to Iraq during the war, she was my rock. She knew when something was wrong, she knew when I needed her and she was always there. Although she had seperation anxiety when we'd leave, she would absolutely destroy the house while we were gone, barking and howling to the point of being hoarse. I remember specifically one story when Nate was gone to war and she and I were on a super long walk. It was a 7-mile walk along the river and I'd forgotten her water bowl back at the car. I kept encouraging her to keep going and she was slowing. Because she enjoyed the no-traffic along the path, she wasn't kept on a leash but she bee-bopped along side me. That is, until I noticed she wasn't. I panicked. I cried. Here was the one person I had left since Nate had left in a scary way and she was gone. No where to be found. Do I call and have people come to me? Do I try and leave...but what if she comes back? I started running and all of a sudden I hear jingling. Bay's jingling. She had gotten hot and detoured down to the river, took a swim, drank, and was making her way back to Momma! I had never been so happy!

She has lived a relatively illness-free life until she was about 6yrs old. She was diagnosed with Addison's Disease. Everyone was so worried about her, but Maysen was a baby and so careful with her. She was gentle with him too, and we would often find her laying in his nursery in front of his (and later Griffins) cribs. Just laying, almost watching and making sure everything was OK.

She hated fireworks. We would have to drug her. Her first experience of fireworks was on the boat. We had went to Cedar Bluff lake with my dad and Jo and they thought it would be a great idea to take her out onto the water while we watched fireworks. No go. She ran around the whole boat .... pee'ing everywhere .... and I'm running around after her with a blanket trying to cover her face (like you would a frickin' horse!) trying to calm her down. Since then it was not happening. In fact, when she was about 8yr old she was in our backyard while we went to purchase some fireworks. When we came home our neighbor told us that someone behind our house started lighting off fireworks. Before she knew it, all she sees is Bailey BOOKING IT down the cul-de-sac with her ears in the "nun-hat" position. She was OUTTA there. So we go back and look -- she had tore down the whole gate to get out. She was not having that!

When she was a puppy she had terrible seperation anxiety. If we left we had to crate her and if we even tried to leave her out, she would destroy EVERYTHING. We're talking remotes, cell phones, purses, my glasses, my nursing books. We even waited till dark and then left the house so we could see what she did when we left. She went window to window HOWLING looking for us. When she got destructive we came in ... she had it bad. How did we break her? Well .... we moved her "basket (bed)" into the living room. Tunrs out she just needed a place she felt save whereever she was. So if we pulled her basket out into a main room while we were gone, she was fine. Eventually she learned to go climb in it in the bedroom while we were gone. Just like a kid!

We will miss her very much. Nothing could replace her. I still miss her hoofs on my floor. But I know she's up there chasing Birdie. Love you, my girl.