Cricket
Our family dog Cricket passed away on April 10. She was two days shy of her 15th birthday. She went suddenly and painlessly, just lay down and never woke up. Sweet and obedient to the last, minutes before she died she had gone outside to go to the bathroom. We first saw Cricket in an animal shelter when she was a puppy. She was in a litter of 6, but she ran to the bars of the cage and started wagging her tail frantically. Our family decided that she was the one. At the time she was still too young to be adopted, so we called the shelter almost every day to see when she'd be ready. We talked about almost nothing else. I still remember the day I came home and my dad said "Look inside" and there was Cricket, in a cardboard box. She ran up to me and started licking me and it was love at first sight. Cricket had no special talents -- she never was good at learning the tricks beyond a few basic ones like "shake hands," and "roll over." But one tric...