Goodbye, Tiny Dancer

Daisy and Dancer beating up Hank

Dancer was a good dog.  Always and forever, a good dog.  She was sheer joy on the hoof - always moving, always dancing, always up for a party.  She came into Mom's life like all the other dogs before her - rescued from an unfortunate situation, falling into the good life, loved for as long as we could before she danced on to a better world. 

She and her sister Daisy were hard to tell apart from each other... both small, dainty blondes.  But while Daisy was beautiful, Dancer was cute - almost the definition of cute.  She had her share of bad hair days (sometimes incredibly bad hair days) but she had her own inimitable style.  She was not necessarily a lap dog - she liked her independence, but if she favored you with her attentions, you had better be prepared to pet her extensively and exclusively.  No reading, no playing on the computer - she let you know she was ready for petting now.  And one of her other nicknames was "the Klingon" - so named for the fact that you could get almost a 180 degree vertical before she would let go of your lap (or lack thereof.) 

She also took her cues from her older sister - she was there for the party.  If there was something going on, she wanted to be there, in the middle of it, and there was no one that she considered a stranger.  Whenever she stayed at my house (and there for a while, it was about half the year), Daisy would go off to bed when Mom did, but Dancer stayed up until Roger and I went to bed, followed Moose into  the bedroom, jumped on the bed (and then onto me) and demanded cuddles until she determined that the party was over, and then jumped down and headed in to snug with Mom. 

She was also the chief instigator of Psycho Puppy Hour every night.  Regardless of how low energy the rest of the day may be, right around 8:00 at night (or whenever Mom got out her purse and car keys), she took it as her sworn duty to attack her sister and begin the tussles.  I'm not sure what it was about a little trip that brought out the Viking in her, but she definitely let it loose. 

She had been slowing down lately (really, ever since her partner in crime, Daisy, passed a couple months ago), and she had stopped being interested in food last Friday.  Then today, on the way home, she went for one last walk (well, carry, really), with our Mother- and then she was gone along on her way.