Dear Friends,

It has been 18 years since the house has been this quiet. No footsteps exploring the house, no barks to go outside, no begging for treats and no nudges to be petted while I work at my desk. Quietness. It’s hard.

My husband and I were heartbroken as we said goodbye to our beloved Maggie May Smith on January 17, 2022 at approximately 9:45 a.m. We were lucky enough to get her from a co-worker of my husband when she was six months old in 2004. I say lucky because she was rescued from a dumpster behind Thomas Hospital in Fairhope, her tail covered in ants.  She was cleaned up, restored to health and given to a family before ours, but their son was allergic to her, so we received the gift of Maggie shortly after.

From her puppyhood we knew she was a unique find. Her nickname was Waggy Maggie—always wagging her tail, always happy to see you, always smiling. And she was just lovely. People would say “She looks like she’s wearing eye makeup.” She grew up alongside our boys who were 13 and 8 years old at the time, now grown and on their own. They would take her a few blocks down from the house to Mobile Bay to go swimming. And when they ran down the pier to jump into the water, they were hoping Maggie would jump too. She didn’t. But she would run back down to the beach and swim out to them. She loved the water, just not jumping into it!