Goodbye Stewie

I am lucky enough to work in a dog-friendly office. If you're unfamiliar with this concept, it means dogs are allowed to come with their owners to work. Where I work, we actually have 3 companies in one building. The primary dogs that come in daily are a rottie and a yellow lab. The lab is named Stewie. Typical of a lab, very happy, great with kids and super friendly. This lab actually belongs to one of the owners. I should also mention, Stewie is the best friend of a young boy (under 5).

Since I have been working here, I've seen the following animals come through here: A rottie (almost here daily), Stewie, another Rottie (daughter of the first one), a Golden Retriever (he is one of my faves), a Toto (Wizard of Oz) look-alike, an adorable pit bull, an abandoned Pointer (who found a home with a coworker) and a stray kitty cat. I love that this office allows pets to spend the day here. It really makes it enjoyable and the majority of us are dog lovers to begin with. If you haven't noticed, I purposely left out the names of the animals. I did change Stewie's name a bit too.

You know you're in an dog-friendly office when half the employees have dog treats at their desk for their "work puppies". No one bats an eye at all "cooing" and "belly rubs"; for the dogs of course. Today, however, went from being a good morning to a really not-so-good morning. One of the owners sent an email around and you knew by everyone's response when they had read it.

It seems Stewie got out of the house this weekend and was struck by a car and killed. The owner hasn't had the ability to sit his toddler down and tell him the truth. Today we couldn't say anything about the news as his son was with him at work. You heard the gasps, the "oh no's", the deep sighs and the sniffles from the few, me included, who shed several tears upon learning this. One of my coworkers took it especially hard. She was very close to this dog.

To make matters worse, the big Rottie that comes in was given 30 days to live because of a cancer discovery. It was discovered too late to be able to do much to save him. So the two most popular dogs are going to leave a huge void in our hearts here at the office. We last saw them both before New Year's. The other owner is still out and should be back in a week or so. We haven't received an update on the Rottie, so we are hoping all is well.

It's hard to lose a loyal pet, even one that you only see while you're at work. I know some people won't get the connection and say it's just a dog. For those who truly are connected to their animals, this is a pretty devastating loss. Heck, I couldn't even write this up without grabbing a tissue because of the leak in my eyes.

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