Braig on the couch
Originally uploaded by Kevin Severud.

On Sept. 11 we said goodbye to Bragi. This was a sad and difficult decision but the risk was not worth ignoring.

Freyja and Bragi entered our lives soon after we bought our first house. They were the cutest little puppies which we rescued from the Santa Clara Humane Society. We both worked so at first we kept them in the kitchen. Bad idea. They tried getting out and ruined the linoleum. So when they got a little bigger they went outside.

One day after coming home from work I noticed that the dogs were not asking to come in. It was dark so I got a flashlight and checked in their dog house thinking the pups were probably sleeping. But they weren’t there. Then I found, in the middle of the yard, the worst thing I could image: Freyja lay there cold and motionless, apparently mauled to death by some dogs that got in to our back yard. And Bragi was nowhere to be seen.

We searched for days for Bragi and finally were reunited at Peninsual Humane Society. We learned at that time that he had a heart defect. We managed it well with drugs but over time it became clear that he did not feel well. Recently he started getting in fights with Fjord and was not a safe dog when that happened.

We said a very difficult goodbye to him yesterday and will miss him. The couch just won’t be the same without him.