All we have left are our memories

We had to say goodbye to our beloved Brittany on Saturday, February 20. She hasn't been well for a while now and I guess it all just got to be too much for her. Saturday started out pretty much like any other day - Britts was acting her "normal" self - well what we would consider normal for her these days. She had been coughing alot through the night which had me quite upset but by the morning she seemed to settle down and was sleeping peacefully. I had to take the girls to a b/day party at 10 so we left and were gone for about 2 hours. Scott was home working on my car. When we came back home Britts was up and about wandering around the kitchen then she settled down on one of her favorite blankets and just relaxed while we did "whatever". See one of my favorite things about Brittany was that she LOVED her family - she loved being around everyone - she was not the kind of dog that would go off by herself and not want to be bothered she always wanted to be right near us and the closer the better :o) Anyway we went on with our day as usual and around dinner time I ran out to pick up some food for us (I don't like to cook on Saturday - for some reason it has become almost like rule in our house LOL) When I got back I had picked up Tai for Scott and I and Wendy's chicken nuggets and fries for the girls. During dinner - like usual - Brittany was very "spunky" she spent most of her time hanging over by the girls because she always knew they were the easiest victims when it came to stealing food LOL! They of course always shared with her - so she had some fries and a chicken nugget or two. Then Scott decided to mash up a meatball and mix that in with her dry food. She ate it all up - but I noticed she left most of the dry food behind (what a stinker). He then let her out in the yard to do what she had to do. But about 10 min later she was standing by the door again? So I let her out and sure enough she had to go and then she came back in. I guess it was about 8:30ish or so I decided I wanted to try to finish reading my book so I sat down in our back room and called Britts to come and sit next to me (the girls and Scott were in our bedroom watching tv and playing on the computer) so I figured Britts would probably rather lay out here with me where is was nice and quite so she could relax. Only she didn't want to lay down instead she seemed restless and she started to pace around. Soon after she looked like she was going to vomit - which is not unusual when she eats something she likes she tends to gulp her food and then she will sometimes throw up soon after so I just tried to coax her to go out in the yard that way she wouldn't throw up on the rug or floor. When she got outside she continued to dryheave but nothing would come up only mucous. That is when I started to get nervous - since we were told about the lung tumors back in October I dreaded the moment when she would start to have breathing issues. She wandered aimlessly through the yard dry heaving for at least 15 min. I tried my best to coax her back into the house finally I was able to get her back inside and she continued to walked around gagging and choking - of course I started shaking and poor Heather (our 8yr old daughter) started crying. Finally she layed down on the floor and it was then that we got really scared because she started almost gasping and looked like she was really struggling to breathe. So we packed everyone up and went off to the vet hospital.