Lucy became a truly valued member of our family when she was a year old. Lucy was the third doxie we were blessed with. My husband got a phone call from a girl while I was at work one day asking if we could find a home for her dachshund. She said her vet had given her our name and number. She told my husband that she had a 1 year old long haired female black and tan dachshund that she needed to find a home for, she said she could not house train her. My husband called me and we decided we would go and see her and that we would find her a good home because we were not looking for another fur baby at that time. That evening when I got off we went to meet Lucy. When we got to the house this little black and tan doxie greeted us as we got out of the van with a tail wag and a smile but she was so thin that you could see her ribs. We knocked and the girl who called us came to the door. As we entered she told us that she just couldn’t seem to house train Lucy. My husband asked what she fed her and she told him whatever brand of food was on sale at the time when she needed to buy her more food. She then went on to say, "I don’t feed her regularly". We knew right then without a doubt Lucy was leaving with us and she was going to be a very cherished member of our family. My husband and I talked about it after leaving there and we both said we felt like we couldn’t get Lucy out of there fast enough. We told the girl we would take Lucy and asked about her bed, toys, food bowl and such and the girl said she didn’t have any of these things. The girl said she would bring us her AKC papers that she had just sent off for and that she should get them in about a week. The following week she called and brought her papers to us. The first thing we thought of as we looked at her papers was they had done one thing right with Lucy, they had named her Lucy Lady of Love, we could not have given her a more fitting name. When the girl brought us Lucy’s papers she thought Lucy had, had a haircut but it was only because we were feeding her regularly and her ribs were no longer showing. After about three days of feeding Lucy one kind of food and feeding her regularly her stomach straightened up and she was house trained and her little stomach started to fill out and her ribs no longer showed and she was the best little girl anyone could ever be blessed with. My husband and I talk about it all the time and say that was the best phone call we ever received. Lucy was so girly, whenever we would take her and get her haircut in the summer so she wouldn't get too hot and they would put bows in her hair she acted so prissy, you could tell she felt pretty. Lucy was one of the best little sous chef in the world, I could always count on her being there in the kitchen with me while I cooked. She loved to keep me company while I cooked and we had some of our best conversation there in the kitchen. Lucy brought so much love and blessings into our home and we are so proud and thankful to have been able to call her our Sugarbuns. Lucy was so beautiful, one of our neighbors across the street once made the statement she looked so majestic. Lucy only had one bad habit that I can recall, she loved to eat paper and she would snatch a tissue out of the box we keep in the van. As soon you put her in she would stretch her neck up front and try and grab one before you noticed and she was fast at it. When we brought Lucy home we already had another doxie named Patches who was two and a half years old. Patches and Lucy excepted one another so well from the very beginning, it was almost like Lucy had told Patches what her early life was like and he told her not to worry that here she only needed to follow a few rules and she would have a food bowl of her own, get fed twice a day, plus get treats, have a bed of her own in every room , toys of her own to play with, she would get to go for lots of rides in the car, and she would have a family that would love her so much and that as soon as their daddy got up each morning and they had eaten their breakfast daddy would lay on the floor in the living room and play with them. Our babies had a pecking order and they never failed to line up in that order to receive their treats. Looking at them on the right was Patches, center Lucy and on the left Harley. They would get in that same order every time all by theirselves. Before Lucy came to live with us we would take Patches in the front yard when we went out. My husband yard trained Patches when we first got him by taking him out in the front yard and when Patches stepped off of the grass onto the curb he would say bad and when he stepped back on the grass he would tell him he good. Then they walked the property line and when Patches stepped outside our property line he heard the word bad and when he stepped back in our yard he heard good. I guess he learned what was expected of him by these two words good and bad because even when we moved to our new house he never left our yard for any reason. Neighbors always asked my husband what he did to keep our babies in our yard and he told them about saying good and bad. He also believes that if you walk your fur babies in the neighborhood your just showing them all of the good places to go and they will want to go see their friends. Our babies never left our property unless they were in the car and they all loved to ride. We could come home from a long trip and if we needed to go to the store for something they were always ready to go again. A squirrel could run through our front yard and our babies might chase it but they would stop at our property line or on the grass at the curb before the street. When we first got Lucy we did not take her in the front yard we wanted to let her get acquainted with her new surroundings first. When we did take her out in the front yard it was like Patches must have told her what the rules were because she too stayed right within the property lines and never left the yard and we never said a word. From that time on Lucy was our protector. Anytime Lucy saw someone walking in front of the house or another dog she would she would bark until we told her we saw them and they were ok to be there. When out in the front yard larger dogs would go around to the back yards of the houses across the street rather walk in the street in front of our house all because of Lucy and her protective bark. My husband says he thinks Lucy was trying to show how grateful she was for her new home. We bred Lucy with Patches twice. In the first litter she had four pups, three girls and one boy. We kept the boy and he is our Harley. In the second litter she had five pups, three girls and two boys. Lucy was a wonderful mother to her babies and was a very loving caring mama to Harley. When Harley was young if he did something and Lucy wanted to set him straight or make him stop she would run as fast as she could and run into Harley and roll him and he always got the message. Lucy and Harley were really close he knew she was his mama and she always remembered he was her baby. Even with Lucy coming from her first home and not getting fed regularly, if they were eating and Harley finished his and walked up to her she would back off and let him have the rest of her food if we weren’t watching. We had to watch them real close because Harley loves to eat and she would let him have her food even though she didn’t get much to eat that first year and Harley really didn’t need anymore. We always said the best gift we gave Lucy was Harley. He will miss his mama terribly. Lucy had a real special bond with my husband, he was always the one that could doctor her if something happened to her and she trusted him like a baby trust it's mother. Whenever he was trying to take care of her for whatever reason, she would just lay there as still as can be and knew he was not going to hurt her, he was trying to make her better. Lucy had slowed down somewhat the last year or so, but sometimes you would think she was a young puppy the way she would take off running and if you didn’t hurry and open the door she would run right into it and then she would look at you as if to say why did you do that. Up until the morning Lucy left us she continued to do her best to please and show her gratitude. Lucy went to the Rainbow Bridge early in the morning on Sunday, August 17, 2014, with her sweet daddy by her side. My husband said he did not wake me because he would not have been able to do what he needed to do for Lucy and calm me down and comfort me, so I do understand and am glad he made that decision because I would have been a mess and Lucy already knew how very much I loved her and she knew from that first day that she had my heart. Lucy, we will see you again one day. We will miss you until then and Lucy you will always be our Lady of Love.

Thanks so much for stopping by to share in our memories of Lucy (our Sugarbuns) and thanks from the bottom of our hearts for all the love you leave for her.