PET TRIBUTE: Bailey Valentine

07/01/2006 – 06/27/2019

By Lisa Valentine

I never planned on having a “dog-dog.” In fact, up until I found Bailey, I’d always been more of a cat person.
I thought maybe if I ever got a dog, it would be a small one. Perhaps a Pomeranian or a terrier mix.

My significant other at the time had other ideas, and that’s how we ended up with Bailey. He wanted a “dog-dog.”
We weren’t planning on taking a dog home with us the day we found her. We were “browsing” at a local adoption event. Bailey was sitting quietly in her crate while dogs around her barked and competed for attention.
We asked if we could take a look at her. Once out of the crate, she was jumping around, joyful to be free but still well-mannered and eager to please. That, in a nutshell, was Bailey.

They told us if we wanted to think about it, we could call the shelter the next week and see if she was still available. We walked away, debating. We knew she wouldn’t be. This dog was too perfect.
We ended up taking her home that day in 2007, just a few months before we moved from our small apartment to a brand-new home on the other side of the valley. A year later we divorced, and I had become so attached to this dog, which I’d initially been unsure I wanted, that I insisted on getting “full dog custody” in the divorce agreement.

For many years after, it was Bailey and I against the world. I had her almost her entire life, and for nearly as long as I’ve called Las Vegas home (13 years). She moved with me to three apartments and two houses, saw me through terrible times and never asked for a thing in return, except that I return home to her every day.

She was an old soul, the type of dog that was equally happy to walk in the park as she was to lie next to you on the couch. As long as she could be close to you, she was happy. I called her my “amateur botanist” because instead of interacting with people or other dogs at the park, her favorite thing was to carefully (and tenderly) sniff EVERY shrub, flower, blade of grass and tree. She also loved chasing lizards, and playing with her dog pals Mia, Bugsy and Desi.

Her favorite snack was steamed butternut squash, which she snapped up like it was filet mignon. She never turned down a dog biscuit, and for many years my late mother made homemade dog biscuits for her and mailed them from Michigan. There will never be another dog, or another soul on this planet, quite like her.

Bailey, I will love you forever and remember you always. I hope one day we’ll meet again.

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