[Leigh22]

I lost Buttons January 29th of this year. One week after my 22 birthday (Jan. 22). Its been 5 months and its not as bad as the day of and the day after his death, but every few days it is. Most of the time I content with just telling friends or coworkers a story about him, but every 3-4 days, at night, I breakdown. I'm not saying I'm ready to forget him... He was 14 when he died, so I had him 2/3's of my life. I just want the pain associated with his memory to stop. Please help me.

I have absolutely no regrets about the time I spent with him. My parents got a divorce a month after we got him. I'm an only child and until Buttons was 5 we moved around a lot. I went to a private school in another town and I wasn't great at making new friends, so he was all I had. And I would challenge any dog owner to say they spent more time with their dog then I spent with Buttons. I spent more time in one year just playing and hanging out alone with Buttons then most owners and dogs have together in their entire lives. We had activities only he and I would do. I see my life up until the day I lost him as just a series of things we would do together. When I was younger, I rode him around in my bike basket. A few years later I got a golf cart and in the evenings he and I would go for rides; he'd sit on the seat beside me. At thirteen, got a motorcycle and he hated to hear it crank up because he knew I wouldn't take him because it was too dangerous. At fifteen I got my license and he went with me everywhere, family and friend's homes, the mall, I'd taken him as far as an hour away to find new parks and new smells for him to enjoy. I lived at home and commuted to college and even though my social life was more active, my friends that came to my house were never surprised when I would stop whatever we were doing because it was dusk and time to take Buttons for a walk.
I can point to the time in my life when I had him and say "I was happy then", it's a shame I didn't know it at the time.