We learned Cody was in renal failure and her kidneys were shutting down. 
Dr. B put her on fluids hoping to stimulate some kidney activity but
on Wednesday morning Cody told me, ‘Enough.” 

Cody didn’t know the meaning of the word until that day.   She lived as if she knew life was short and she was going to stuff every crack and crevice with joy.  If you wanted to be miserable it was your problem.  It did no good for visiting rescues to posture or circle her with raised hackles.  She would greet them all with wiggling, dignity stripping sniffs from head to toe.  Satisfied that the upstart had been welcomed properly, she’d look up at me with dancing eyes and pronounce him a keeper.  

I realized that I never saw a shamed expression on her face – ever.  In fact, she seemed to love a good scolding as if I were putting on a show just for her entertainment.  I would tower over her, waving some shredded evidence in her face, only to see her smile up at me with twinkling eyes and a contentedly rocking rear.  She'd seemed to
say, “You’re so beautiful when you’re angry.”

I never tried harder not to fall in love with a dog.  I had lost Baby to a tragic accident when Cody was four months old.  I wanted to crawl in a pity pot and close the lid.  To make matters worse, Cody seemed to care less that our house was in morbid grief.  Baby was gone and she was here and that’s all there was to it.  And she had no intention of trying to fill anyone’s collar.  She didn’t seem to notice that I was holding out on her - but Cody noticed everything.

A few months after Baby’s death, I was home alone with her.  She had swum out to a little mud island that appears in our pond in the dry season.  I sat watching her as she seemed to play with someone on the island.  She would lie down on her elbows; butt up in the air; pouncing on a stick then dart and dash as if another dog was trying to take it from her.  She would tuck her tail and arch her back and speed around in circles pausing long enough to see if she was being chased and then start again.  Then she would launch herself into the water in a great ground-clearing leap as if a bumper had been tossed for her.  She swam back to the island and the game would start over again.  I found myself laughing and then I cried.  That day I said goodbye to Baby and opened myself up to that odd yellow dog. 

Wednesday was one of the saddest days I’ve known.  Cody taught me how to get on with life when I didn’t want to and now I have to get on without her.  We laid her to rest under the oak tree with Baby, Yeager and the others on her monogrammed bed.   This is the last photo I have of her.

She had been vacuuming one of Bert’s babies with her nose
until he contentedly laid down next to her for a nap. 
  She wouldn’t have had it any other way.  She had one more day and she was stuffing it full.