Look at that adorable face!! I almost forgot how blue her eyes were as a puppy. I wanted to write a post all about Cambria as a way of processing the loss and to remember her for the wonderful companion she was. <3 Sam and I always knew we wanted dogs to be in our life. Before we were even officially dating, he told me that in a few years he already planned to have a dog named Cambria. At that point, he thought it would be a red heeler like his granddad's dog. Fast forward just a bit and we're a young married couple and living in an apartment. I told him I wanted to wait until we had a house with a nice yard to have a dog and he agreed that would be best. By the time we had the house, we also had a 3 month old and I didn't feel like I could handle a puppy on top of new motherhood. Just when I was getting a little more used to things with Jane, I was pregnant with my second baby. Finally, when Atlas turned one, Sam was like, "Well, it's now or never! Should we get a dog?" I agreed. We still planned to have more kids, but I wasn't pregnant yet and I was able handle the life we had at the time pretty well. With our suburban life and 2 small children we didn't feel like we could meet the energy needs of a red heeler well. Growing up, Sam had a yellow lab, Rosy, and told me just how lovely of family dog she was throughout his time in Africa. Labrador Retrievers are known as such a solid family dog and they will about let little kids do just about anything to them and not get irritated. Of course, we weren't going to let our toddlers abuse the dog, but it was nice to know if our little ones made a bad choice before we were able to stop them that the dog wouldn't just immediately bite them. We agreed for our family at that time a lab would be best!
We found a breeder nearby that seemed reputable and somewhat reasonably priced and decided to put down a deposit on a female puppy. I think we were 2nd to last in getting to choose from the litter. Which was fine, we just wanted a lab! We got to visit the puppies one time before we picked her up. I have no idea which one of those puppies was Cambria, but she's one of them! The breeder told us the momma was her indoor dog and was her shadow. So I guess Cambria took after her momma because she became my shadow. Sam ended up going to pick Cambria up on his own because the kids and I were visiting my brother in Austin on pick up day. Sam said the breeder told him that Cambria had a few marks from her momma correcting her that would never heal all the way, so she couldn't be a show dog. That's not what we wanted her for anyway, so it didn't matter. Sam said it showed she had spunk!
Here you can clearly see the marks on her face. She had one more on her mouth that was a permanent scar. Cambria's time as a puppy was just about as smooth as I could have asked for. (Or maybe I just don't remember all the hard moments because the good strongly overwhelms the hard) She loved to chase Jane and try to bite at her ankles. One time she reached Jane's ear and made it bleed. Jane was not very happy with her after that, but the ill will didn't last long. She also loved to sleep underneath anything she could find. I'll share the rest of my favorite puppy pictures here! Watch her grow!!!
Aw baby puppy! Although, at this point she was already starting to lose her puppy look! It happens so fast! Jane wanted to take Cambria with us on our walks as soon as we could, but Cambria was not interested at first. She wouldn't walk and would just sit down. So she rode in the bottom of the stroller until she was ready. It didn't take very long before she adored walks like any other dog.
I love doggy head tilts! They are so cute!! Cambria had a more exaggerated head tilt response when she was still a puppy, but she only had a very slight head tilt response after her first year.
Being a lab it's no surprise that Cambria loved water!! Anytime there was a sprinkler or a pool of water or a puddle she was in it! She was always trying to eat the sprinkler head. A few times she picked it up and carried the hose around making all of us laugh so hard! She was soooo good at taking baths and never tried to get out before I said we were done. As much as she loved water she did not enjoy thunder as most dogs don't. She didn't shake or get super nervous, she would just get cuddly and she was never cuddly! It was sweet. When I wasn't sitting down for her to cuddle, she would be as close to me as possible during a storm. I also love that picture of her sleeping on the coffee table, she wasn't realizing how big she had grown and didn't really fit there anymore. ;)
Cambria really loved balls. Of course retriever is in her name! So fetch was a huge favorite. Cambria never wanted to give the ball back though. She'd bring it to us but take forever to let it go. After her first few puppy months she was soooo good to know what balls were hers and which ones weren't and left those alone even if we threw them to each other. After she finished puppy teething she did not chew anything that wasn't hers. So grateful for that!! The second pic is her being concerned about the thunder and the third is just to show you how much she grew in 4 months! She is 6 months old there.
Cambria loved sleeping by the Christmas tree each Christmas season. Her chin on my arm was about as close as she got to cuddling without a storm around. The picture in the glider chair is another indication that she had no idea how big she was getting. She shoved herself in that chair as long as possible. I look at those two middle pictures and I'm not surprised at how many comments I would get about her being such a beautiful dog. Great build, shiny coat and bright, expressive eyes! If there was ever a dry area of the yard that Cambria could roll in to get dead grass stuck to her she was all over it!! Silly doggie! She had a fierce love for popcorn! Haha. She would always wait so intently for a piece to drop.
These two pictures are some of my absolute favorites. This was just an hour or so after Alexandria was born. Cambria was so anxious to meet her!! Cambria had just turned 1 year old a couple weeks prior and she was soooo gentle to just sniff her and give her just one little lick to greet her for the first time. Such a precious moment and I'm so glad we caught pictures of it! Cambria was always so great with children and seeming so aware that babies needed extra gentleness.
As much as Cambria was not a super cuddly dog she did come in for a hug every so often. <3 And she would always put her head on a stuffy or blanket if it was lying on the ground. Anything comfy! I taught her to wait with food on her nose and she was so good at it! Since she especially loved popcorn that is some impressive patience! Cambria liked to lie down next to Xan when she was on the floor and the only thing she couldn't understand was why Xan couldn't throw her ball for her. She would drop it in the bouncer often! Haha! We gave her a bunch of tennis balls for her birthday because she would go through them so fast. She couldn't resist pulling the fuzz off!
Any time I had a late night snack on the couch I had a very dedicated watcher. She never begged, she would just watch intently to see if she could get a taste. I've already mentioned her love for water and man did her dream come true when my dad said she could come and swim with us. Just look at the smile on her face! She would climb out just to jump back in! Xan loved to cuddle with Cambria and being the good lab that she was she let the children do what they wanted, as long as it wasn't hurting her of course. Even then, she would just move away and never hurt them. In the second to last picture she had climbed on the couch and the blanket hung over the back fell on her. She didn't seem to mind. Like I said, she liked to be comfy! The last pic is when I went for a walk with Cambria after my grandfather passed away. It was very therapeutic to walk with my dog to process the loss. We came upon a baseball on the side of the road, which was so appropriate. My grandfather used to take walks at his nearby park and pick up wayward baseballs to give to my brother as batting practice balls when he used to play baseball. I had not seen a baseball on one of my walks before and have not since that walk.
Cambria's world was changed in 2020 when the Quarankitty enter the picture! Haha! We got Milo right after my grandfather passed and right when COVID-19 started. It was fun to have a new pet around when we couldn't go many places! So far I have been going in chronological order with picture and events, but I placed all Milo and Cambria pictures here. A barrage of cute cuddles! Cambria only tolerated Milo cuddles. The first few weeks she let him cuddle more, but later on whenever she woke up and realized the cat was next to her she would move. Haha! The last cuddle pic I have of them is from March 2025. So it still happened every so often! Cambria taught this cat how to be part dog and we are so glad she did. They did play occasionally, but Cambria wouldn't do much because I feel like she knew she could easily hurt the cat. Milo would stalk and playfully pounce on Cambria all the time. That one of them in the car has Cambria making a funny face. It's like, "Why does the cat get to be closer to you than me??" ;)
As you can see Cambria was very patient while Jane dressed her up and made an alphabet line on her back. Haha! Her face with the outfit is asking me, "How long do I have to do this??" Don't worry I took it off pretty quick. This batch of photos also shows how much she loved fetch and still enjoyed sleeping under things when she could fit and decided to cuddle with some dolls left on the couch. She was sooo good at riding in the car too. She liked to sit next to me in the passenger seat or sometimes she would go sit in the back with the kids, never got in the way or barked or whine at all. The last two pics are of her only health issue other than the last 10 days of her life, of course. If you look closely in the pic with Piper lying underneath her you can see a mass on Cambria's back leg next to Piper's foot. It had grown and grown in size over the course of a year to a year and a half. It never seemed to bother her at all unless she scraped it on something and even then it was just because it would bleed not because Cambria seemed like she was in pain at all. So finally when our budget allowed for us to spend some money on the dog instead of our own health care we had it surgically removed. I used a towel method to keep her from licking the stitches instead of the cone of shame because of how much she hated that cone. I couldn't stand how sad she looked. Plus it was so hard in our small house. Cambria was a big dog and she hit that cone on EVERYTHING. I was so glad when it was gone and her incision was all healed! I felt like a bad pet parent when I couldn't afford to remove it for so long. If it would have been hurting her in some way I would have found a way to fix it up sooner for her though!
Her last two years were easy going and fun with no health issues at all. In the first picture of this bunch she had been sprinkled with oobleck and didn't mind at all. She also didn't even seem to notice that Piper was using her like a chair. ;) Those pictures in the pool are of her last swim even though I didn't know it at the time. She was so happy to hang out under the crib when I cleaned under it to break it down. Jane dressed her up in a jacket and a scarf and it also didn't seem to bother her at all. She would push down the back cushion of the couch to make herself extra comfy. She made a doggy friend in Pepper when we doggy sat for our friends. They loved to wait for crumbs together near Piper. The last picture in this set is of when we just got back from our trip to Great Wolf Lodge. Xan tried the wolf ears on her and her face says, that's fine, I'm just happy everyone is home again!! This was at the end of February 2025 and I believe this is when I started noticing her having a small limp at night when getting up after having been lying down for a long time. I didn't think much of it because I knew labs could get arthritis and have a bit of hip trouble later in life. I figured I'd just keep an eye on it and see if it got any worse. She still jumped up on the trampoline to be with us with ease and ran around the yard as fast as usual without any trouble. In March 2025 Cambria turned 8 and I realized that the average age for a chocolate lab was around 10 years. I thought, "Woah! Maybe only 2 more years with Cambria. It's coming fast!" I had no idea how fast. Just knowing that she was becoming a senior dog made us start thinking of maybe getting another dog fairly soon. We knew we always wanted to have a dog around and we thought it would be nice if Cambria could show the new puppy the ropes since Cambria was such a good dog!! We started discussing dog breeds and maybe wanting a golden retriever but then we saw the price for a puppy and it was not something we could afford anytime soon. Our friends recently took in a pregnant dog and shared the puppy pics on social media. They were so adorable and we figured there wasn't a better opportunity for us to get a puppy that we knew had been cared for so well. So in early June we had already picked out a puppy and planned to have Cambria and the new puppy for hopefully a couple of years before we had just one dog again. Unfortunately, Cambria did not make it long enough to meet the new puppy, Yuna. But I trust God and it must have been for the best.
These are my last pictures of her all healthy and my friend Rachel took them for me. <3 This was in May 2025 at a homeschool foam party and she had so much fun playing in the foam and water with everyone. I had no idea we only had a month left with her. There were no other indications of her health declining. The limp had stayed mostly the same. At night right before bed and only when she would just get up and very rarely did I notice her doing it in the daytime at all.
The first two pictures here are of my first vet visit with Cambria at the end. She was already scheduled to have a vet visit before she starting showing concerning symptoms, so we could get a heartworm test to renew her flea meds. On Wednesday, June 11th Cambria did not eat a strawberry I put in her bowl right away. She left it there. Never had she left any kind of food in her bowl. After I put the little kids to bed I noticed Cambria breathing harder and she was twitching when I touched her. Very strange behavior for her! I was very concerned, but she already had that appointment for Saturday, so I hoped we could make it to that without much trouble and figure out the problem. Thursday she wouldn't even eat the chip crumbs off the floor and any dog food she ate was hand fed. She seemed a bit better by Friday because she did eat a whole bowl of food on her own and started to search for crumbs again. She even barked to let us know someone had dropped off a package, but she was still sort of twitchy when touched on her back or sides. We had some leftover pain meds for her and those seemed to help as well. On Saturday, I thought it was a fun coincidence that Cambria's name was right next to a pet named Pepper like her doggy friend! Also this picture of a pug looked soooo much like my pug growing I had to snap a pic. The vet said it seemed like Cambria had a tear in her back leg and that's why she was favoring it and in pain. She said we could do bloodwork and an x-ray to make sure. It was all very expensive. But I thought, what would we do if it's just a tear? Just let her recover at home and give her pain meds in the mean time. So that's what we planned to do. The Sunday after she seemed worse than ever, didn't want to move or eat much and I decided that was just because she had been stressed at the vet and maybe reaggravated the tear. By Wednesday, June 18th she seemed so much better and I really thought she was on the mend and we were through the worst. She was eating again, searching for crumbs, he mobility seemed much better and she even went to fetch her ball I rolled slowly for her. Thursday morning was so hard. She went from seeming to recover to the worst of all. She was limping on her front leg now, like her front leg was curling under her as she tried to walk and so unsteady in her back legs. She did not want to move at all. She didn't poop all day. I made another vet appointment for Saturday and kept praying for a miracle for my beloved dog. Friday morning I bawled. I heard Cambria whine at the side of my bed at 5am (she never whines!) I thought, Oh she probably really needs to poop! So I took her out real quick. She only peed, but while starting to walk back to me she tripped and fell over her front feet, rolled to a lying down position and didn't try to get back up. I lost it. (I'm losing it right now just thinking back to it) I had kept some hope that she would get better and at that moment it all rushed away from me. It definitely felt like my dog was dying at that point. Through the next day and half I did my best to support her so she could go to the backyard to pee and drink water. I gave her a few pieces of lunch meat through the day, but no dry food since she didn't seem interested and she hadn't been able to be steady enough to poop. We had friends over to play video games and she did move enough on her own to say she wanted to come say hi. So I assisted her as she made her way over to friends to sniff and wag her tail. She posted herself lying behind the couch and my friend Rachel told me each time a kid walked by, they gave her a pat and she wagged each time. Alexandria made the observation that day that one of Cambria's front legs was pretty swollen and I knew that was a bad sign. I was folding clothes Friday night in the living room and Cambria had been lying in our bedroom next to where Sam was sitting. I wanted her to stay there until bedtime so she didn't have to move too much, but Sam said she wanted to come see me. She lied down next to where I was and at some point she whined trying to readjust her position. I helped her move her swollen leg out of the way to lie on her side and she continued resting nearby until I finished folding. When I got up to go to bed, she acted like she wanted to get up on the couch which she hadn't tried to do much since she got sick 10 days prior. I helped her up and she got comfy. I looked at her and thought I don't have the heart to make her move again and if I leave her here she might try to come to the bedroom at some point and fall again. I decided I would be most comfortable sleeping on the couch with her that night. I am so glad I made that decision! I spent her last night right next to her, exactly where we both wanted to be. Man, I miss her.
Saturday was such a hard day. Cambria wanted to get off the couch and go outside at 7am and so we did. She barely peed on her own without falling over. I brought her water bowl outside so she didn't have to walk all the way over to it inside and she almost fell over trying to drink. I had to stabilize her so she could just drink water and even then it was hard to encourage her to do that. We had always called her a camel. She would drink her entire water bowl at one time and now it was so strange to barely get her to stand long enough to get a small drink. Her vet appointment was a 9am so we just stayed outside together until it was time to get ready to go. The thing I remember most about her last morning is how she quickly moved her head and snapped her jaw closed several times still trying to catch the flies buzzing around the backyard while lying in the grass unable to get up. (all through her life if there was a fly inside she wasn't content until she caught it!) She had just one once of her spunk left and it made me smile. After we went back inside to start getting ready for the vet, I noticed her swollen leg had gotten much worse. It was so heavy! Her other front leg had started to swell too. Her back legs looked like they had lost so much muscle over the past 10 days as well. I took her in to the vet while Sam stayed home with the kids. Sam helped her in the car while I was leaving and the vet technicians carried her in for me. I did my best to hold the tears back while I answered questions about what had happened over the last week. It was a drop off appointment because that's all they had available for that morning. I drove back home in tears and waited for the call with the results of the bloodwork. It wasn't long! Just an hour later the vet called and asked a couple questions about if Cambria had been bitten by anything or maybe ate something poisonous. The bloodwork showed damage to some organs. I answered that I wasn't aware of anything like that happening, but maybe?? She said they would put her on 2 weeks of antibiotics to make sure it wasn't a bad infection causing all the problems and do some IV fluids since she had gotten a bit dehydrated from not being able to stand for too long. I was good with doing out best to help her recover and I was just hoping it really was something she could recover from. Not even 10 minutes later the vet called back and informed me that when they started to shave a part of Cambria's leg for the IV it bruised immediately. That told them right away she had DIC (a secondary life threating bleeding complication usually caused by another serious problem) and that Cambria was not going to make it. Those words crushed me even though I knew, behind the hope I had that it wasn't true, those were the words I was going to hear that day. The vet continued to tell me that they did an ultrasound of her abdomen and since we hadn't paid for them to do this she wasn't supposed to share the results, but Cambria had internal bleeding in her stomach and it was more than likely caused by a tumor. I choked back the tears as best as I could and tried to ask what was next and just verify completely that the vet was sure Cambria had no way to recover, would only get worse and be in more pain in the coming hours/days and putting her to sleep now was the most kind thing we could do at this point and that was her strong recommendation. The vet confirmed all of those things leaving no doubt in my mind it was time to put Cambria to sleep and say goodbye. We called my mom to come be with the kids so Sam and I could both go to be with her. We left at 11:15am to get there at 11:30am. They had lots of soft blankets on the ground for Cambria as they brought her in to the dimly lit exam room. Cambria had lots of tail wags for us and we encouraged her to lie down. She did so willingly. The vet was so sweet and explained everything that would happen. They brought in treats for her and chocolates for her to eat since it couldn't hurt her anymore. She got to eat many doggie bones and a Twix bar. :) In fact in the picture with me and Cambria she has her eyes on the treat jar! Haha! Still thinking mostly about food in the end, of course! I held Cambria and told her we loved her so much and Sam made sure to tell her what a good girl she was. I never let go as they administered the drugs. Cambria looked straight into my eyes the whole time as she closed them for the last time. She didn't look scared, just reassured that we were there. It was so peaceful and I couldn't have asked for anything more. We opted for a communal cremation since carrying and burying a box with a 85lb dog seemed pretty impractical and it wasn't important to us to have her body or ashes in the backyard. The memory of her will always live on in our hearts and that's all that matters. I did order a paw print and I really do love it. It sits on my bedside table along with the super duper sweet handwritten card adorned by her paw prints and nose print from Banfield.
When I posted her passing on Facebook a friend of mine, who breeds large dogs, said he had to put his dog down earlier this year due to cancer and he said what happened to Cambria sounded like the exact same symptoms and timeline as his dog. He said it was Osteosarcoma cancer. It's an aggressive bone cancer that starts in the legs and metastasizes to other parts of the body. The median age for the type of cancer is 7 years old. I forgot to mention that in April my dad was feeding Cambria for us while we were on a weekend trip and he noticed a mass on her side nearer her back legs. It didn't seem to bother Cambria and she had a lipoma lump just 2 years prior that didn't bother her either. I realize now that was probably related to the cancer as well. Cambria had a high pain tolerance so she may have been dealing with more symptoms for longer than I realized. Such a strong doggie!!
One last thing, I almost forgot to mention! The A/C in my car was not working so I took it to the shop on June 10th. The day before Cambria's first concerning symptom! I didn't get it back until June 21st, the evening of the day Cambria passed. I realized this was such a blessing. It kept me home waaaay more than I would usually be so I could be there for Cambria while she was not feeling well and spend some extra time with my doggie before our time together came to an end. I am grateful God saw fit to give me this extra time. <3
If you made it to the end of this post thank you for either loving me and/or Cambria so much to make it all the way through. Writing this post was an important part of my grieving process. The following I wrote after my childhood pug, Allie, passed away in Feb 2014 and it still rings true today!
"I always knew it was a mistake to love a dog so much, but you know, it's a mistake I would make again and again. She was worth it. I know people say, it's just a dog, but to anyone who has had a dog as great as she was knows that it doesn't make it hurt any less. She was part of the family."
Yep, I'll keep making the same mistake to love a dog so much. (I'm already making it with Yuna) It's worth the pain. Cambria was worth it all! I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. She was so great!! She was part of the family and will always be in my heart.
Cambria, thank you loving us so well and being the best automatic vacuum cleaner, watch dog, kitty teacher, walking partner, loveable goofball, stress reliever and companion we could have asked for.
Cambria, thank you loving us so well and being the best automatic vacuum cleaner, watch dog, kitty teacher, walking partner, loveable goofball, stress reliever and companion we could have asked for.
We'll love you forever puppy dog!!!
Proverbs 12:10a
A righteous person has regard for the life of his animal
