Goodbye to our Best Friend

Today we said a teary and sad goodbye to our best buddy Neo (the wonder dog). As I sit here now, it occurs to me (after many writes and deletes of this post) there are no words to describe how much we will miss him, how important he was to us and how glad we are that we had him in our family. For those of you who knew Neo well and probably have a muddy paw print covered shirt from a big dog's hello, here is a small tribute to our pal...

We know our little house on the prarie will not be the same without Neo and although he will be deeply missed, he will never be forgotten.

There are so many memories, including the day we got him - we were planning on getting a female dog, but 5 week old Neo was having none of that - he picked us and made it clear he wanted to be our dog, and he was... here are some of our favorite moments..

• Muddy paw prints on everyone who visited us compliments of the wonder dog
• Not 1 but 2 kiddy pools destroyed by puppy Neo
• Snoopy Neo laying not in but on top of his igloo
• Neo eating all the oil from the turkey fryer
• Neo on the fishing boat (what a disaster)
• Rollerblading Celery Flats (every single person stopped my to ask if I was crazy)
• Trying to shoot the gophers in the yard before he noticed what we were doing and went after it (he usually busted us)
• Neo's summer of Corn Detassling (still waiting on his check I"m sure its in the mail)
• Neo's days of snowplowing on the 4-wheeler w/ Bill
• Buying tomatoes from the store every summer because Neo ate all the ones from the garden.
• Neo jumping the gate @ my parents house without even needing a running start (we thought we would stop him - we were wrong)
• Neo and the Cow (if you don't know this one, don't ask)