If destiny brought us any one of our pets, it was definitely Delta.

When we first met, she was with another dog and the two had started a fight with a neighbors own dog. At the time, I was big into rescue and managed to enclose one terrified and wary pup into a fenced in backyard of a house with no one living in it. With the help of my sister and her boyfriend at the time – as well as one hour of chasing, tackling, and attempting to lasso her – we managed to grab this dog who didn’t trust people at all.

She was clearly someone’s dog, she had a collar, but we spent a whole month looking for owners and no one stepped forward. I spent several nights trying to gain her trust from the crate, my husband doing almost nothing other than putting his hand up to the crate and somehow she became his dog (despite her fear of men) and his pretty little princess. We eventually had to make our way up to the Dearborn Animal Shelter due to being unable to keep her, as we already had a dog and three cats, plus we were living with my mom at the time. My husband left us in the car while he inquired inside about turning her over only to be told that they had no room and wouldn’t be able to take her.

It changed our lives forever in the best way possible.

Despite Delta’s constant bolting of the front door, the 30 minute to hour long chases, the extra precaution we would have to take every time we let her outside, we loved her immensely. She was protective of my childhood dog and became best friends with our other dog Gunner, even becoming a hunting tag team on their own when it came to Taylor’s and DH’s rat problem. Though she wasn’t a husky or sled dog of any kind, she loved when it snowed and would go crazy, biting the ground and trying to attack it. Getting her inside was even harder.

She loved to run but loved chasing squirrels more than anything. It got to a point when we had to give the squirrels a running start so that she wouldn’t actually catch one and possibly get sick. She would sit at the tree and stare up at them while they chattered at her. Even when she got out with Gunner and we had no clue (our gate had been left opened unknowingly), she had been found chasing a squirrel near Van Born before promptly running home due to “stranger danger”.

Her and Gunner were two peas in a pod but both so different in their playfulness. While Gunner prefers pets and the occasional tug of war, Delta preferred to be “smacked around”, chasing tennis balls, and destroying Gunner’s stuffed animals. But if you grabbed her tail, she would throw the biggest fit before playfully mouthing you. If you showed Gunner just the slightest amount of attention, she was on her way to push him aside and get some for herself as well. She was a spoiled princess, but she was our spoiled princess and while I always joked that my husband loves her more than me, he was always quick to tell me that he does love her more than me.

We would call her Delta Mae, Delta Belta, the Hamburglar, Potato Dragon, Potat, Deltee, Deltor, the Deltanator. But she’ll forever be our baby girl. The eye never forgets what the heart has seen. Whatever the afterlife is like, I will find you and Piper again, no matter what it takes.

As well, I want to apologize to the woman who handled Delta’s cremation process. We had completely shut down, her death had come so suddenly and unexpected. We may have seemed quite cold during our interaction at pick up but we were honestly in such shock and the grief is so large. So please forgive us.