My Easter story: We rescued our dog Tiffany. But before she died, she rescued me

One of the hardest things I had to do after my husband, Michael, died more than three years ago was climb back into bed alone. I might still be sleeping on the sofa, with the TV on and the volume down, if it hadn’t been for our little dogs Tiffany and Princess.

For quite a while it was just us three “girls” in the house.

I put them on the bed with me when I was finally ready to sleep there again. Princess would lie there for only a couple of minutes before dashing from the bedroom. She preferred the cool floor tiles by the front door.

But Tiffany? Our little rescue shih tzu/terrier who had wandered the streets of Emporia became my constant bedtime companion.

Every night I carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed, gently, as though placing a queen’s jewel atop a velvet pillow. I would kiss her on top of her head. She slept on her own cloud-soft blankie spread over my Pottery Barn bedspread.

Spoiled? Um, yeah.

It was fun to watch her cycle through the canine sleep positions. The so-called lion’s pose, with her head on top of her outstretched paws. That weird belly-up situation, on her back like an overturned turtle.

Some nights she would dig and dig and DIG at the blanket and bedspread until she arranged them just right while I yelled silently in my head. “Do you know how much that bedspread cost?!”

Once when I let her go too long between grooming sessions — bad dog mommy! — she slashed her way like Freddy Krueger on steroids all the way down to the fitted sheet. Poor sheet.

She’d always end up on her side. Relaxed. Peaceful. I loved the little whimpering noises she made, chasing squirrels in her dreams.

She was next to me every night until Tuesday, which, unbeknownst to both of us, would be her last night.

The little dog who walked me through the worst pain of my life has lost hers. I am still in shock.

I introduced Tiffany to readers of The Star in 2016 after Michael and I adopted her from a shelter in Emporia, about 100 miles southwest of here. I wrote about her to encourage people to adopt rescues. Tiffany would have been 9, we think, later this year.

There are thousands of Tiffanys out there needing homes. This past week KC Pet Project took in 20 to 30 new dogs but didn’t have room for any of them. The nonprofit has been “full to the brim” like other local shelters for months.

“She was listed online as a shih tzu,” I wrote then. “Turns out she’s got terrier in her, and that’s the DNA that has her running like a deer all through the house, jumping up onto high places and over the backyard fence.”

Tiffany actually had Superman blood. She leaped in a single bound onto chairs, sofas, picnic tables — once and only once onto the dining room table. On her first day in our family, my mom nicknamed her “Nadia” after the Romanian gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci.

We worried about how she would get along with our older shih tzu, Princess, but they were fast buddies. They’d eat side by side, usually no problem unless Tiffany finished first and slyly tried to nudge Princess away from her bowl.

When Michael was still alive the “girls” would lie on the recliner with him. They looked like two piles of fur wearing collars, one dark, the other light brown.

Tiffany didn’t really like snuggling, though. I believe she was stuck in survivor mode.

I used to imagine her life on the streets. Alone for who knows how long and in what kind of weather. Eating and drinking anything she could find. She never went a day unfed or unloved after she moved in with us, but she still poked around the backyard looking for gross things to eat. (One of them buzzed loudly in her mouth.)

She never went a day in our house, either, without access to a soft blankie. My living room looks like a blanket showroom with throws draped all over the sofa, on every chair where Tiffany liked to nest and piled high inside a huge blanket basket.

Once I found her in the bedroom rolled up in a basket of clean laundry. This past Christmas when I wrapped the base of the tree with one of my grandma’s quilts, Tiffany kept sneaking there to curl up and nap.

She had a pretty little face but hated, detested, having her picture taken. “Tiffany, look at Mommy. Tiffany, look at Mommy. Tiffany look at Mommy,” I would hound her, holding up my iPhone like a crazed paparazzo.

She would throw me a haughty Kanye glare and turn her head away. Girl, please!

In those first years without Michael — “Daddy” to the dogs — I found out for myself why dogs are pressed into therapy service. How many of you have felt their healing power?

My friend and colleague, sports writer Pete Grathoff, did. Pete wrote eloquently last summer about losing his own beloved dog, Henry, who became his unexpected therapy dog after Pete lost his wife, Karen, to cancer in 2015.

I told more than one grief therapist after Michael died that the dogs helped me survive the depression. I think of that at Easter, a time of salvation and rebirth.

Then came the pandemic, and my girls kept me sane.

Tiffany lay under the dining room table as I wrote what seemed like hundreds of stories about COVID.

As I write this now, I’m at the table, but she’s not underfoot.

Last year Tiffany and I lost Princess to old-age ailments. I remember coming home from the emergency vet without her and telling Tiffany, “It’s just us now.”

She moped for days.

The last hour or so of Tiffany’s life we napped together in Michael’s recliner before she suddenly lost control of her bladder, lay lifeless on the carpet and yelped like I’ve never heard her cry before.

I wrapped her in my fluffiest bath towel and dashed to the emergency clinic, where I was told something was horribly wrong with my healthy, happy, well-cared-for little dog’s heart. She had no symptoms.

As she lay on the exam table I whispered into that one ear that always flopped open when she slept.

“Thank you, baby. You saved my life. I hope I’ve been a good mommy.”

I don’t recall exactly what I said to the vet tech that made her look at me with concern and ask if I would be OK.

I will be.

For now I’m back on the sofa, sleeping with the TV on, the volume turned low to fill the silence.